


Jigsaw Puzzle of the Sky

by Shiyaki



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Confused!Reborn, Horcrux Hunt, M/M, Sky!Harry, Vongola Decimo!Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2018-09-19 17:17:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9451988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiyaki/pseuds/Shiyaki
Summary: Tsuna isn't the only available candidate for the position of 10th Vongola boss, but one is even worse than Iemitsu's son and the other shrouded in mysteries (not to mention quite busy with other things). Mysteries that Reborn plans to unravel.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As you will see, both KHR and HP will be AU. All arising questions will (hopefully) be answered in the following chapters. 
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely NonchalantxFish, thank you very much :)

Reborn wasn't a particularly patient person. Never had been, in fact. Of course he was capable of waiting out the perfect moment for a hit, for days if necessary, but he always hated every second ticking by. Not to mention the bad mood he found himself in sooner or later. He was already prepared to feel grumpy while waiting for Shamal, a person notorious for being late for just about everything.

Apparently the doctor slash assassin was in the mood to pleasantly surprise him however, because just as the clock struck nine o'clock in the morning, Shamal and an unknown man stepped into the grimy alley, which had been designated the meeting spot for their information exchange.

Although he hadn't laid eyes on the brunet for almost two years, Shamal still looked the same – the same white coat, the same stubble on his chin and especially the same half-lidded, slightly sleazy eyes. There was something different about him, though, something that wasn’t physical, but Reborn couldn't quite put his finger on it.

His assessing gaze wandered to the second man, who was clad in black trousers and a white button-down shirt. The dark, oily hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, drawing attention to the Roman nose and the dark, penetrating gaze. A gaze signaling that Reborn wasn’t being underestimate in the least, his current baby-esque body notwithstanding. Was he part of the mafia world and had heard of Reborn's reputation? Had Shamal told him about Reborn? But even then people tended to take the Acrobaleno lightly during the first meeting. It was a psychological thing. Odd, that the man looked at Reborn as cautiously as people should. Refreshing, but odd.

"Yo, Reborn." Shamal had stopped in front of him, his hands burrowed in the pockets of his coat and his back bent into a slouch as if he couldn't hurt a fly, let alone  send out a deadly insect with a flick of his fingers.

The Sun Acrobaleno tipped his fedora in greeting. "Ciaossu Shamal, punctual for a change, I see. Who is your companion?" 'And what is he doing here?' He didn't say, but his tone of voice implied the question all too clearly.

"This is Severus Snape, my colleague who will bring you to your destination."

Colleague? As far as Reborn knew, Shamal worked alone and especially never with another man.  He was notorious for never even  _ treating _ men. Except for that incident, one and a half years ago, when he had shown up at Ospedale Nicollò de Luca, an Italian hospital catering mostly to mafiosi, to cure a teenager boy of a seemingly incurable disease. The day the young man had been discharged, was also the last day he had been seen and, incidentally, Shamal hadn't taken on any new hits since then. And now Shamal showed up with a male colleague?  If this was coincidence, he'd eat his hat.

"Destination?" Reborn questioned suspiciously, his eyes narrowing at the currently taller man. Shamal just shrugged lazily.

"Of course. You came here for information regarding Harry Potter. What better way is there than getting it right from the source?"

So Shamal not only knew where Potter was hiding out (for whatever reason), but  had arranged a meeting? Suddenly the three days he had had to wait until the man had sent him a meeting spot and time seemed a lot more worthwhile. But why couldn't Shamal take him to Potter? Why was Snape necessary?

Reborn opened his mouth to fish for more details, but got interrupted, before the second syllable even left his lips. Rude.

"As much fun as it is listening to your tea party chit chat, I have no intention of doing so all morning. Either come to a decision soon or I will return without you," Snape drawled from his place next to an old, graffitied metal door, his arms crossed and his index finger tapping against his biceps. When Reborn started to glare at him, the brunet just raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

Shamal, on the other hand, pulled his hands out of his pockets and held them up in a placating gesture. "Geez, alright. Reborn, if you want any answers to your questions and a chance to talk to Harry, you better come with us. And decide quickly, Severus isn't all talk. He  _ will _ leave without us and it's a pain to get to the location without him."

"Fine," Reborn acquiesced reluctantly. His intrigue was piqued  and he wanted to get on with the task Vongola Nono had given him. And if it turned out to be a trap, well... it wouldn't be the first time he had to shoot a former ally.

Instead of leading them out of the alley, Snape came up to them and dared to pick him up. Before Reborn had the chance to express his protest in the form of a deft kick or a nice, shiny bullet, the world began to whirl around him and he felt starkly reminded of the time his body had been compressed to the size of a small child.

What. The. Hell?

When he was set back onto the ground, Reborn kept his breakfast where it was by willpower alone and drew long, deep breaths, until his stomach settled. All the while he forced his senses to take in his new whereabouts and screen it for immediate danger, his hand hovering over his gun.

He was surrounded by trees, the smell of late flowering plants and the sound of birdsong. Except for Snape and Shamal (who was retching and muttering to himself), no other person was present, especially not the one he was looking for. How had they arrived in the middle of nowhere, anyway? Mist Flames? Drugs?

"The location of Harry Potter is Rose Cottage in Cottesbrooke."

A relatively large stone cottage shimmered into existence in front of Reborn, barely visible behind the copious amounts of greenery and rose bushes of various colours, which had long since overgrown the wood fence.

Reborn stared at the building in front of him, which hadn't been there before Snape's disclosure. He still suspected Mist Flames with a generous amount of dramatics, but as someone who lived to keep other people on their toes, instead of the other way around, the last ten minutes had made him feel decidedly off-kilter. He had to get a grip on himself!

“Is this your handiwork?” Reborn pointed to the cottage, while pinning Shamal, whose face still held a greenish tinge, down with a narrow-eyed stare. He knew the brunet was a Mist, albeit not a very good one, but maybe his skills had improved during the last two years?

“It is not,” Snape denied, his tone revealing a hint of impatience. “Depending on how your conversation with Harry turns out, you may obtain the answers you seek.” Without further ado, the dark-haired man went inside.

Reborn returned his penetrating gaze to Shamal, who offered him a lazy shrug that might as well be an ‘I told you so’ and strolled after his colleague, leaving the Acrobaleno no other option than to follow them.

They entered the house through a set of double-glazed doors, which led to a brightly furnished sitting room. Sitting on a white leather settee was a young man, who was painstakingly writing into a notebook. Considering the awkward grip on the pen, he wasn't left-handed, but the irregular twitching of his right hand explained why he had switched to the other one.

"Didn't I tell you to rest, brat?" Shamal, still slightly green in the face, wandered over to the settee and tousled the teen's already wild hair. He plopped down next to the younger brunet and, to Reborn's amazement, started to examine the twitching hand. When Shamal looked up again, his gaze landed on Snape, who re-entered the room with a vial containing a purple concoction. Shamal nodded in approval, while the teen grimaced in apparent distaste.

"Don't pull that face. Be glad that the reversal of the effects is relatively uncomplicated and swift,” Snape commented and held the potion out to the teen. “I wish you wouldn't act so imprudently, all the time, Harry!" 

"Imprudently?” Potter repeated indignantly, before he reluctantly  swallowed the purple liquid with a full body shudder. “I admit to running into trouble a lot, but it usually happens for a reason as you well know. That trap would have killed Tonks, if I hadn’t interferred.”

"Instead you almost died yourself!"

"How? Just a moment ago you said the effects could be handled easily and quickly!"

"Because I was there to stop them, before they had a chance to get worse!"

"Alright, you two, that's enough. We have a guest, remember?" And if Shamal was the voice of reason, the end of the world was imminent.

"Right." (Most likely) Potter took a deep breath and set the empty vial aside, before turning around to face Reborn. "I'm very sorry about that. We're all a bit tense, at the moment. I'm Harry Potter and you're Reborn, correct? You wanted to talk to me about the Vongola?"

Actually, Reborn wanted to talk about a lot of things, starting with the teen's current activities (Saving people from lethal traps?) and the reason for Shamal's presence. And he wanted to get his answers with guns (literally) blazing, as he was wont to do, but he was also pretty sure he'd be kicked out of the house and Harry Potter's life within seconds, if he tried. World's greatest hitman or not.

This wasn't a no-good boy with an oblivious mother or a pathetic, small whale, whose parents could be bullied into anything with enough force. Reborn knew what Shamal was capable of and Snape was probably no push-over, either. Not to mention Harry Potter himself, who was staring at him with the eyes of a fighter. If one looked close enough, the emerald green eyes even showed a hint of orange.

"I was assigned by Don Timoteo, the current Vongola Boss, to turn you into his successor."

"So… your choice has already fallen on me? There are two other candidates, right? My cousin, who shares my Vongola blood through our grandmother, who was Timoteo's younger twin, and the son of CEDEF's leader. Well, three, if you count my aunt, but I reckon she's too old now to bring her into the fold."

Oho, someone was up to date, wasn't he? With Shamal at his beck and call that wasn't a huge surprise and who knew which other connections Potter had up his sleeve?

"You are the most suitable for the job, so yes, the choice fell on you."

"But you don't know anything about me," Potter countered calmly. "You've known me for all of ten minutes and the information you've probably dug up on me is at least one and a half years old. You have no idea what my current circumstances are, how this-" He raised his still twitching hand. "-happened or even how you managed to travel more than eighty miles in a few seconds.

I seem to be the most obvious choice to you, because I'm not new to the whole mafia subject and I wouldn't be surprised if you're intrigued about all the blank spaces in my life, but please let me tell you that I'm likely the most unsuitable candidate of the three on your list."

Reborn narrowed his eyes. It was a lot more subtle and eloquent than Tsunayoshi Sawada's 'There's no way I'll ever become a mafia boss!' or Dudley Dursley's incoherent blubbering and wetting of his trousers, but it was still obviously a refusal and that was a no go! He may not have an answer to all of those questions, but there was no way in hell, Reborn would leave this house or dismiss this candidate without a damn good reason.

"And why would you think yourself unsuitable?"

"Because I'm currently facing a much larger problem than considering whether or not I want to be Italy's most influential mafia don. A problem that has a high chance of ending my life prematurely."

Reborn studied the brunet for a long moment and also took in Snape's and Shamal's grim faces. It actually seemed to be a serious threat and not just a dramatically embellished excuse.

"And what exactly is that problem?"

"A man hell-bent on killing me and everyone standing in his way. His followers also have a tendency to hunt innocent people. And by 'hunt' I mean that in the most literal sense possible. You may have heard about the increase of missing people in the United Kingdom."

He had, actually. Reborn also knew that the government had no idea how to handle the problem, because they had absolutely zero leads. The perpetrators weren't part of the Mafia, either; otherwise the Vindice would have intervened due to the threat on Omerta.

It was… quite astounding that Potter was in the thick of things and even a main target of the criminal group's leader. No wonder he had decided to live off the grid.

"So if that threat is dealt with, you're going to accept your position?"

"If I'm alive by the end of it, I won't refuse to be a candidate. Though there are still a few trials until I'd officially be considered the next boss, right?"

Reborn nodded thoughtfully.

"Tell me more about that man and his minions."

Assassination was his main profession, after all, and if the problem was solved by killing a person or two, then he might as well help to speed things up. And in the meantime, he could find out more about Potter.

He failed to notice Snape's and Shamal's minute smirks, too focused on Potter's slight smile.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by the lovely NonchalantxFish, thank you very much :)

"Nice try on the manipulation, by the way, but it still needs a lot of work before you become Vongola Decimo." Although 'some polishing' was probably the more accurate phrasing, but Reborn wasn't about to admit that it had taken him a moment or two to identify the direction Potter had steered the conversation towards; namely, acquiring Reborn's help in a non-mafia-related conflict without paying for his service.

By the time Potter succeeded Timoteo and therefore became the most influential mafia don in Italy, the allied famiglias (and maybe even most neutral ones) would be eating out of the palm of the young man's hand.

Said brunet fiddled with a string of his hoodie and blinked at Reborn in faux innocence, before his lips slowly shifted into a small smirk. The Acrobaleno quite liked the sharp edge of it.

"Thanks, I guess. Well, to start off, you should probably know-"

Reborn saw the glare of green light from the corner of his eyes, just before a resounding, almost deafening bang penetrated the air. He jumped to the window sill within a second, gun at the ready and trying to ignore the ringing in his ears.

Were they under attack? Had Potter's enemies found them? Or perhaps a rival famiglia? The hitman let his gaze sweep over the outside world, but no suspicious movements caught his attention.

When Potter stepped up behind him and tapped his ears with a piece of wood, Reborn, having reached the end of his patience, lashed out with a kick, which never connected. Potter had used the least amount of movement necessary to dodge the attack, his eyes flashing orange for a second, while his eyebrows wandered towards his hidden hairline. Surprisingly, he said nothing. From the corner of his eye, Reborn saw both Snape and Shamal move and glare at him, but a minute shake of Potter's head convinced them to remain seated.

"Better?"

"What-? Oh…" His hearing had gone back to normal. How had that happened? Weird.

"Don't worry about the noise; that was my brother. He likes to experiment with his Flames and… well, a lot of other stuff. This isn't the first explosion he caused. We actually had to reinforce the windows, because they kept shattering. Personally, I think he likes the light show," Potter explained with a long-suffering sigh, before going back to the settee and settling down between Shamal and Snape, like nothing had happened.

Reborn slowly lowered his gun, locked it and finally tucked it away again with a last glance out of the window. It wasn't like he had forgotten about Potter's 'brother'. In fact, he would’ve been a great lead to find the brunet, had he not been pulled out of school and disappeared after Potter’s release from Ospedale Nicollò de Luca.  

"Gabriel Williams… I've heard he takes after his grandfather."

"Hm... he hasn't really used that name after Grandpa's… death. It's still on his ID, but he usually introduces himself by his moniker," Potter mused, a bittersweet smile tugging on his lips. There was probably a story behind it, but Reborn didn't care enough to find out. "But yes, he's a lot like him. In looks, personality and genius, when it comes to mechanics. I'll introduce him to you later."

"Shouldn't you check on him? He could be seriously injured." Was Potter really that uninterested in his brother's well-being? From how warmly Potter spoke of him, it was improbable.

"Not necessary.Look here." Potter pulled a beeper-like device from his belt and held it up to him. It had three small indicator lights on the bottom, one of which was green, and a small display above them. "Like I said, that wasn't the first time one of his experiments went wrong… or right, it's hard to tell. Anyway, after something like this happens, he has to give me feedback on his status. The green light obviously stands for 'everything's alright', the yellow one for 'injured, but nothing too serious' and red is 'badly hurt'. If he doesn't answer within three minutes, we handle the situation like it's a red light.

We actually use these customised beepers during… missions and stuff, too. All connected devices will light up the way mine does now. The display shows the name of the person who sent out the status. Nothing fancy, but it's already helped to save a few lives…" Potter sighed and attached the beeper back to his belt. "Before we were interrupted, I wanted to tell you about the big secret. It's usually handled similar to mafia matters, meaning it's got a Statute of Secrecy, but it's not like the situation can get any worse by disclosing the information to you."

Reborn frowned, but motioned to the brunet to explain.

"To make a long story short, I'm a wizard and there's a magical society living alongside the 'normal' populace. There are wards and other measures in place to keep it a secret from non-magical people."

"…magic?" Reborn repeated slowly, the disbelief dripping from his lips.

"Yes, you've actually already experienced it. Your means of travel to this town, the power behind the concealment of this house, how I fixed your ears... all that wasn't any type of Flame, but magic. I can give you more information about and demonstrations of what magic is capable of later, if you want, but do you think you can go with it for now?"

Reviewing the last hour, Reborn reluctantly nodded. He was still pretty sceptical - A whole hidden society? - but he had seen and lived through a lot of weird stuff in his life. Hell, he was currently cursed and reduced to the size of a baby, so adding magic into the mix maybe wasn't too inconceivable, after all.

"So, this man who wants to kill you, he is a wizard, as well?" Reborn reasoned.

"V, as we call him, is a dark wizard determined to rule magical Britain and most likely the 'normal' UK, as well," Potter started to explain, adding the air quotes for emphasis. "The Death Eaters, his followers, have infiltrated the magical government. The Minister of Magic is nothing more than a puppet and V's the one effectively pulling his strings. They've already passed quite a few laws and procedures to further their agenda. One of their objectives is to get rid of muggle-borns, magical people born from non-magical parents, because they think them  _ inferior _ . Muggle-borns have to report to the Muggle-Born Registration Commission and if they can't prove close relations to a wizard or witch, they're imprisoned for having stolen their magic, which is ridiculous. A lot of muggle-borns and even half-bloods have left the country or are currently living in safe houses." Potter's upper lip curled in disgust, while his left hand was clenched to the point of turning his knuckles white. Apparently no longer capable of sitting still, the brunet jumped to his feet and started to pace.

"We can't just kill V, otherwise we'd have long since dealt with him. He split his soul with a dark ritual and put each part into an object. As long as those exist, he's basically immortal. We know what the objects are and some are already destroyed, but the rest is either very well-protected or their location is unaccounted for. We were trying to retrieve one of them yesterday, but an ally of ours triggered a trap and then  _ this _ happened. " Potter raised his injured, right hand with a frustrated growl.

Reborn tugged at the front of his fedora to hide his face, while he thought about the new - admittedly mind-boggling - information. He didn't know or understand a lot about the situation yet, but it was enough to deduce that things were a lot more complicated than he had first figured. A hidden, magical society, terrorised by a megalomaniac immortal – this was like nothing he had been involved in before, and was so far out of his mission parameters that it wasn't even funny anymore.

"How big is the resistance movement?"

Snape snorted.

"Most bury their head in the sand and wait for someone to rescue them, mainly Harry as the 'Chosen One'. I used to be a member of a group called The Order of the Phoenix, but after the leader died, it turned into a gathering of headless chicken. A few members, who aren't complete dunderheads, help us occasionally on missions and to defend the safe houses. There are also a few people from Harry's generation who decided to help. I have no doubt, you'll be meeting some of them sooner or later and-"

"Hold up, the Chosen One'? What does that mean?"

Potter groaned and looked like he wanted to hide under a rock. "There's this prophecy-" Reborn raised an unimpressed eyebrow, which was answered by Potter's commiserating nod and a shrug of his shoulders. "Yeah, sounds stereotypical, I know… Anyway, it was spoken before my birth and states that a person born at the end of July, to parents who have defied V three times, has the secret power to vanquish him. The conditions applied to two people, me and another boy. Vol- V came to our house when I was a year old and killed my parents, but when he tried to kill  _ me _ , his curse rebounded and hit him instead. He turned to dust and I got this out of it." The brunet pushed his fringe aside to show him a faded scar in the form of a lightning bolt. "Since then people've hailed me as the 'Chosen One' and now that V's revived, they look to me for help."

Reborn was about to ask for clarifications on the 'revival' part, when he heard a faint crack, followed by hurried footsteps. Everyone in the room tensed and reached for their respective weapons, but when the door to the sitting room was thrown open, revealing a young woman with bushy, brown hair and panicked eyes, the three men on the settee looked slightly less alarmed. That was until the newcomer revealed the reason for her presence.

"Harry, Death Eaters have destroyed the Millenium Bridge and the London Bridge!"

For a long moment, they gaped at the brunette in astonishment. Then, Potter threw his empty drinking glass against a wall. It splintered into a million pieces, but fortunately none of them hit anyone. Reborn frowned at the display and made a mental note to work on the teen’s temper. Snape apparently shared the hitman’s displeasure and showed it clearly as he fixated the young wizard with a stern gaze and admonished him to calm down.

Potter ignored him and resumed his pacing, all the while cursing in at least three languages.

"It's still uncertain how many casualties there are, but it's bound to be a lot. It looks like… it looks like he's finally started his war against the muggle world now… and they don't even know, what's going on…"

"I know!" Potter growled and plopped down on one of the armchairs, his fingers buried in his dark hair. The young woman looked torn between snapping back and patting her friend's (?) shoulder in concern. She finally settled on a deep sigh and moved to the second armchair, where she spotted Reborn.

"Oh! Who is this?"

"My darling Hermione, meet Reborn," Shamal introduced, while sidling up to the young woman and trying to pull her into an embrace. "An acquaintance of mine. Don't let his appearance fool you, he's been cursed to look all small and innocent, but he's actually a devil in disguise."

While 'Hermione' continued to study Reborn with a thoughtful look in her eyes, she idly flicked her wand in Shamal's direction and mumbled something, which caused the hitman slash doctor to curl into a small, whimpering ball on the floor.

"The Rainbow Curse, right?"

The Acrobaleno’s eyes widened.

"What!?" 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: violence, Shamal's flirtations
> 
> Beta'ed by the lovely NonchalantxFish, thank you very much :)

Reborn wasn't sure what to feel or think anymore. Since meeting Harry Potter, his world had been turned upside down repeatedly and not even a whole day had passed thus far. Learning of a secret society filled with magical people and creatures had been mind-boggling enough, but what had really got to him was the new information concerning his curse.

After turning into Acrobaleno, he and his curse-mates had tried to track down the person responsible, the Man with the Iron Hat, but the bastard had disappeared without a trace. Searching for more information about their curse had borne no fruit, either. Eventually, almost two decades ago, Reborn had (mostly) accepted his fate.

His former life had been erased and 'Reborn' had first seen the light of day. Some of his old quirks had disappeared, some new ones had emerged over time, but what remained a constant in his new life was the fact he never aged. At all.

And now, after all this time, he'd finally found a new lead. Reborn wasn't sure if it would get him closer to breaking the curse, but he felt the faintest flicker of hope.

And dread.

Apparently they weren't the first generation of Acrobaleno Iron Hat had created. During her research, Hermione had apparently stumbled over an old notebook belonging to a wizard, whose younger squib brother had been turned into an Acrobaleno a few centuries ago. Both of them had worked on breaking the curse and finally found a way to snap the connection between the man and the pacifier. Unfortunately, the removal had drained the former Acrobaleno of most of his life force, killing him a couple of hours later.

The notebook contained a slew of further information, but due to being irrelevant to the war efforts, Hermione had never finished reading the rest. She had, however, promised to retrieve it from her stacks of books and bring it over as soon as time permitted.

Reborn glanced toward the half-closed kitchen door, behind which Potter was currently preparing lunch, while Hermione talked to him. The hitman hopped off of the armchair to join Shamal, who had disappeared to the small patio at the back of the house.

"I thought you quit smoking."

Shamal snorted and demonstratively blew a smoke ring in his direction.

"Since last seeing you, I've quit about half a dozen times."

"I'm not surprised." Quitting a vice was seldom the hard part; not starting up again was, and, to his knowledge, Shamal had never been a person who liked refusing himself enjoyment.

"Not surprised, huh? I'm not too sure about that," Shamal commented with a side-glance and a quirk of his mouth. Reborn was pretty sure they were no longer talking about Shamal's smoking habits. "When you asked me to find Harry Potter, you probably expected another failure at worst and a somewhat capable Vongola successor at best... not a magical world and terrorists. Let me tell you: You've barely scratched the surface."

Reborn believed that as well, though his expression remained blank, except for the slight glint in his dark eyes.

"Then let me start to rectify my currently lacking knowledge by asking you how Dr. I-don't-treat-men Shamal became a Guardian of a male, teenage, wizard Sky."

"Caught on to that, have you?" Shamal mused wryly as he flicked the cigarette butt into a nearby ashtray. "Well…"

* * *

Studying the pale youth on the hospital bed, Shamal wondered why the patient couldn't have been a cute girl or a beautiful woman. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't even be here, but no matter what people may say about him, he always returned the favours he owed.

Well, in this case the man he owed it to was already dead, but it had been a pretty big favour and the man's grandson had called him repeatedly, each time sounding more desperate. In the end Shamal had opted to cut him some slack and to pay Ospedale Nicollò de Luca a visit.

He flipped through the patient chart, trying to ignore the two stares boring into the back of his skull. Shamal had expected Gabriel Williams' presence (the boy had summoned him here, after all) but who the hell was that dark-haired guy who almost felt like a fellow hitman?

The brunet put the patient chart on the adjustable hospital table and checked the monitor next to the bed. Most vital parameters were stable; the values for the heartrate were a bit high, however. It fit in with the increased brain activity the hospital staff had measured. Not to mention the orange glowing eye, which became visible when Shamal pulled up one of the teen's eyelids.

Potter was caught in his own head, apparently trying to quite stubbornly fight off the unknown mind control drug he had been injected with. A drug devious enough to work even after it had been flushed out of the body, and against which Sun Flames were useless.

Shamal didn't know the specifics of what had transpired, just that a fraction of the Estraneo Famiglia had apparently survived the slaughter they had inflicted on themselves by experimenting on their own children. After biding their time and doing God knows what, they had approached Isaac Williams, to pressure him into helping them with one of their sick experiments. Of course the man had refused, leading to his untimely death, Harry Potter's hospitalisation and quite a few dead Estraneo bodies.

Shamal startled when Potter's forehead was suddenly covered in Dying-Will Flames. They softly licked at his hand, but instead of burning him like he knew they were capable of, they radiated comforting warmth. Shamal's fingers lingered a moment longer, before he pulled them back. And no, there wasn't anything reluctant about it.

When he looked up, dark, narrowed eyes were assessing him, though the other man didn't utter a word. Instead the Williams boy approached the bed and started to card his fingers through Potter's wild hair. The Flames disappeared just as suddenly as they had come. The blond shifted the lollipop in his mouth to one side and looked up at him, his gaze worried.

"Can you help him?"

"The better question is 'Can you help him in time?', kid."

Shamal was an expert when it came to unusual afflictions and their cures. Not all of his 666 illnesses had popped up with a convenient counter-measure, after all. Some, he had had to create himself. But in this case, time was against them. The constant use of his Flames and the stress on his mind was steadily sapping Potter's strength. Either the teen would end up nothing more than a puppet or he'd die. He suspected the latter.

The hospital staff had already started on creating a cure, but so far there wasn't much progress.

It was time to get to work!

* * *

Recreating the initial drug was a bitch, but it eased the way to finding a cure and, additionally, they had the possibility of testing it before the administration took place.

Shamal felt like the last time he had spent such a shitton of time on a medical project, he'd had to suffer through his thesis years ago. At least he got constantly supplied with espresso by one cute nurse or another, though after a few days the caffeine did more harm than good.

When, after a week and a half of research and seemingly endless cycles of trial and error, the cure was finally ready for use, the bags under Shamal's eyes would have put an insomniac's to shame. He was twitchy, had a headache the size of Italy and was about to doze off while standing.

God, he was ready to sleep for a week!

Despite his exhausted state, Shamal made sure to be present when the first dose was administered to Potter. Perhaps that should've been his first warning sign that something was up. Usually he couldn't care less about patients after his part in their treatment was over… except when he wanted to get into their pants and that certainly wasn't the case with Potter.

"The drug didn't only contain chemical components, there were Mist Flames woven into it; too intricate to notice them at first. Both were trying to screw with his memories and perception, thereby squishing his free will. The Flames more so than the other components - that's why it still worked after the latter were flushed out of his body. He needs a few more doses, but the assault on his mind should steadily decrease now. We can't tell what's left of his mind until he wakes up. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to catch some Z's." He nodded at Blondie and Grumpy – apparently the man was called Severus Snape – and headed to the on-call room's uncomfortable beds. Not that his body would care at this point.

* * *

"… and then later, we can see where the night leads us." With a roguish grin on his lips, Shamal popped one hand up next to nurse Vitocelli's head. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into a low ponytail and her cheeks were flushed an adorable red.

"I… I really should be going back," she murmured, her eyes darting toward the door, before she inched in its direction. Not giving up that easily, Shamal switched hands, effectively blocking her way. The brunette started to nibble on her bottom lip, while Shamal smiled disarmingly at her.

"There's no need to rush. I'm sure your colleagues have everything under control. Why don't we-" A soft thump stopped him short and made him turn around. Shamal eyed the pillow on the ground, which would've hit him, had it not been lacking the necessary momentum. His gaze retraced the presumable trajectory to the nearby bed, from where dazed green eyes were glaring at him.

"Leav' 'er alone."

Shamal raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

"Well, well. Barely awake and already meddling in someone else's business." The hitman idly noticed that the nurse had slipped out of the room as he stepped up to the bed. Shamal'd have to make sure to talk to her later. Or perhaps to nurse Abano? She was a bit feistier than nurse Vitocelli and he certainly liked them feisty. Well, he'd decide later.

Potter wasn't quite as pale as before, but it'd be a miracle if he remained awake for more than a few minutes. The teen's eyelids were already drooping.

"Who're you?"

"Dr. Shamal, the one who saved you from pushing up daisies. Do you remember what happened before you passed out?"

Potter's forehead furrowed in thought, drawing attention to the faded zig-zag shaped scar in the centre of it.

"I… the Estraneo… and then… wait, where… where's Spanner…?"

"Spanner?" Why would the brat bring up a tool now? Perhaps his brain had turned into mush, after all? Though, whether he liked it or not, Shamal would have to wait until later to assess the teen's state of mind, because Potter had fallen asleep again, like the brunet had predicted.

* * *

'Spanner' turned out to be the Williams kid, which kind of made sense considering his habit of always tinkering with something or another. The second time Potter came around, the blond was trying his best to squeeze the stuffing out of his self-proclaimed brother. His face was buried in the brunet's shoulder, making it hard to tell whether or not he was crying. Grumpy, on the other hand, had crossed his arms in front of his chest as if assuming an unapproachable stance made everyone suddenly forget the countless hours the dark-haired man had spent at the teen's bedside. The tension seeping out of his shoulders was a dead giveaway alone.

"Let's try this again, brat," Shamal suggested, while shoving his hands into the pockets of his white coat. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Potter squinted up at him from behind his brother's mop of hair.

"You being a creep."

Shamal opened his mouth to retort, but was momentarily too indignant to utter a word of protest.

He was NOT a creep!

"What did he do?" Blondie leant back, his eyes dry and his expression unconcerned despite his question.

"That, I would like to know, as well," Grumpy agreed suspiciously, as he fished a pair of glasses out of his pocket. He carefully settled them on Potter's nose, earning himself a small smile from the teen.

"He was harassing one of the nurses when I woke up the first time."

"What would a brat like you know about such things? I was flirting with her," Shamal finally managed to protest. What an annoyance! He already felt a headache coming on.

"She looked ready to jump out of the window to get away from you," Potter deadpanned, raising a hand in front of his mouth to cover a yawn.

"She was just shy. Now get back to my question."

The brat eyed him for a long moment, before he heaved a deep sigh.

"After the… When…" The teen's shaking fingers started to clench around the fabric of Blondie's T-shirt, until his knuckles turned white. Giving up all pretenses, Snape laid a gentle hand on Potter's shoulder and squeezed, but this time the younger brunet didn't even manage a lacklustre quirk of his lips. His fingers loosened their grip a bit, though.

"I was fighting, then I suddenly felt a prick near my calf. Everything went hazy and… I- I must have passed out, because I turned up in my mind-space, where- wait a second. What happened after I lost consciousness? There were still two of those bastards standing."

Something dark flickered through Snape's eyes and Shamal saw Spanner flinch, but neither was forthcoming with the requested information. Potter narrowed his eyes and switched his calculating gaze from one male to the other. It ended up on the blond, who refused to face him, and slowly crumbled into a heart-breaking look.

"Is that why…?"

Shamal had no idea what the brat was alluding to, but Blondie apparently knew what was being asked, because he offered a minute nod. Potter drew him into his arms again and mumbled something into his ear, then haltingly resumed his recount.

"It was like… like a very vivid nightmare, starring faceless creatures. They showed me gruesome things to… I guess, to intimidate me, but when that didn't work too well, they started to attack. In the beginning, I think there was another force trying to get into my head, but it didn't get through."

"That was me."

All eyes darted to Grumpy, who had once again returned to his cross-armed posture; though this time he looked even more defensive than usual. Kind of like a huge, fortified wall made out of steel.

Shamal wondered what he meant by that, but Potter just nodded his head and managed something resembling a thankful smile. When he opened his mouth to ask how exactly this 'getting into Potter's head' had taken place, Grumpy shot him a quelling glare. Having been on the receiving end of worse looks, Shamal answered with a challenging eyebrow and a distinct smirk. Snape's hands twitched, but before he had the chance to do anything, Spanner tugged on the man's sleeve.

Without their notice, Potter had nodded off, his head resting on his brother's bony shoulder.

* * *

Shamal wondered why he was even at the hospital anymore. The cure had been finished and after the fourth injection without incident, it was relatively safe to assume that there wouldn't be any side-effects. He was about to administer the second-to-last dose and even that could have been done by a different doctor or a nurse.

And yet, here he was, on the way to a brat who had thrown pillows at him half a dozen times (hitting twice), trying to cock-block him. The teen had also somehow become the darling of every nurse of the ward, receiving little treats, smiles and winks... even from nurse Marcello, who was an old dragon by everyone's standards.

When Shamal opened the door to the patient's room, Potter was sleeping, which wasn't a huge surprise. The twisting and turning, however, was. Shamal idly wondered if this was the first nightmare the teen had been subjected to since breaking free of the mind-control drug.

„Hey, brat, wake up."

The brunet stopped next to the bed and shook Potter's shoulder, getting increasingly more insistent with every second Potter didn't wake. The teen groaned, but remained asleep, his jaws clenched tight and his face beaded with sweat and tears.

Shamal uttered a long-suffering sigh and laid a hand on the brat's forehead. Seconds later Mist Flames trickled through the clammy skin, hopefully easing the nightmare by forming more pleasant visions. It was a trick he had used once or twice when Hayato had still been a midget, always staring at him with adoring eyes.

Potter, fortunately, stopped thrashing around and settled into a more restful sleep.

Shaking his head, Shamal concentrated on what he had come here for. He sterilised the skin, checked the syringe one last time and finally administered the medicine dose. Five minutes later he was ready to leave the room and had already turned around, when he heard a whispered ‚Thank you'. At first the brunet thought Potter was talking in his sleep, but when he faced the teen, clear, green eyes were staring back at him.

„What for?"

„Well, saving my life for starters. Without you I'd probably be dead by now."

Shamal frowned and shoved his hands into the pockets of his white coat.

„I only-„

„Yes, I know you came here to pay back the favour you owe my grandpa, but frankly speaking? He's..." He hesitated for a moment, a dark look crossing his face, before he pressed on. „He's dead, so the favour is pretty much void, and even then, you stayed much longer than you had to." Freeing himself from the blanket, which had twisted itself around his legs, the teen wriggled into a sitting position.

Shamal didn't quite know what to say to that assessment, because it was the truth, after all.

"Then there're your Flames," Potter added musingly, drawing his legs closer to his body and wrapping his arms around them.

"My Flames?"

"Mist Flames, right? I was having a nightmare and you did something with your Flames to make it stop."

Shamal carefully didn't change his expression. His little mind manipulation act, well-meant as it was, could be construed as an attack. On a defenceless, underaged Sky no less. He was kind of regretting his second of good will now, but then again, he hadn't expected to be caught.

"Why do you think I've had something to do with it? Nightmares can stop on their own, you know?" Shamal finally challenged, putting as much condescension into his voice as possible.

"True, but it was the same feeling as the one just before I woke up from my, well… coma, I guess? You put your Flames into the first dose of the cure, as well, didn't you?"

Aaand it was getting worse, great. Perhaps Shamal would be better off getting rid of the problem and then laying low for a while.

"That still-"

"I won't make you admit to it, if you want to keep it a secret for whatever reason. I won't tell anyone either. Just… thank you."

"Weeell, if you're that grateful to me, you could stop the constant assaults on my person."

"You can flirt and fuck with any consenting adult you want for all I care, but as long as you continue to harass people, I'll keep throwing stuff at you." And with those words, Potter slid back down, wrapped his blanket around himself and closed his eyes.

Shamal gaped at him for a moment, before he shook his head and left the room.

* * *

Shamal knew something was wrong, when he found himself in the cafeteria for the second time within five minutes, the last dose of Potter's medicine still in his pocket. He frowned at the room in general, turned on his heels and hastened back to the first floor.

This time he stopped a good few feet in front of Potter's door and inched his way forward. With each step the urge to go away and do something else grew stronger, until he stopped in front of Spanner, once again halfway down the hallway. He couldn't even remember turning around and walking.

Shamal watched as Blondie approached the door with no apparent trouble, though Spanner stopped short a good two feet in front of his brother's room, suddenly flinching violently and turning white as a sheet. Shamal couldn't understand why, because to him, nothing in the hallway had changed right then.

For a short moment, Blondie flicked his gaze between the door and him, his face blank, but his eyes shadowed with concern. Finally, returning to Shamal, the teen reached up to his neck and unclasped a thin silver chain with a small robot charm on it, which he then held out to the hitman.

"If you put this on, there shouldn't be a problem. Please make sure that Harry's okay, I'll contact Severus."

Shamal eyed the jewellery in his hand and shrugged internally. It wasn't like he had anything to lose by wearing it. He quickly fastened it around his own neck and tried his luck once again. This time Shamal reached the door without problem. One hand reached into the pocket containing his darling mosquitos, while the other carefully pushed the door handle down.

What awaited him on the other side of the door was a small group of people, clad in black robes and their faces covered with grotesque masks. One of them was lying unmoving on the floor, their mask half melted and partly fused to the skin. Another had somehow managed to grab Harry from behind, effectively restraining his arms to his torso. The brunet's forehead was ablaze with orange Sky Flames, as he knocked the back of his head against his captor's face and used the weakened grip on him to duck down. Seconds later the person behind him toppled to the ground after being hit by a brownish light beam.

A third joined their comrades a moment later by courtesy of Francesca, who had infected the attacker with a disease, which caused a heart attack.

"Get rid of the damn muggle! I'll take care of Potter."

Shamal wasn't sure what exactly a 'muggle' was, but he certainly knew that it referred to him. The brunet dodged when two of the (probably) men sent more light beams in his direction, and answered them by throwing scalpels. One pierced the left man's throat, leaving him gurgling blood.

A pained cry from Harry distracted him for a split second, but it was enough to miss the mumbled 'Petrificus Totalus' and his second adversaries' slight wrist movement.

One moment Shamal was standing, the next he was staring at the ceiling, unable to move. Who the fuck were those people and what were they fighting with? Certainly not with Flames, that much was obvious!

"Your muggle is out of commission now, Potter. Perhaps we should put him out of his misery completely. What do you say?"

"Go to hell, Malfoy!"

Shamal tried desperately to get his limbs to move again, but not even his fingertips would twitch. It was a scary situation to be in, especially during such a bizarre fight. A fight that was now being fought by two weird but dangerous people and a teenager, who was nowhere near healthy at the moment. Harry had already been pale and drenched in sweat, when Shamal had entered the room, and even now he heard his urgent gasps for breath.

And still he was incapable of helping him and had no idea when he'd be able to move again. If he'd ever be able to move again.

Variously coloured light beams whizzed through his field of view, followed by the sound of splintering wood and loud bangs. A grunt or two, clanking, cursing in English and Italian, and finally the horrible feeling of warm blood dripping on his cheek, when Harry couched protectively in front of him.

He wanted to shout at the teen to get out of the way, to run out of the door and hide, but his vocal cords produced no sound and Harry wasn't even paying attention to him. He looked like death warmed over, but his gaze was still determinedly fixed on his target. Whatever his target was at the moment.

But what startled the hitman even more was the trickle of Sky Flames softly, almost tentatively nudging him. A silent question, speaking louder than words.

"Sectumsempra."

Screaming, a loud crack - like a backfiring car - and finally, blessed silence.

Harry collapsed to his knees and half on top of Shamal, the Dying-Will Flames on his forehead expiring. For a long moment the teen just gulped for air, his whole body trembling from exhaustion. Finally he turned to Shamal, flicked a piece of wood at him and mumbled something into his non-existent beard, before passing out.

It took Shamal a few seconds to notice that he was capable of movement again.

* * *

Trident Shamal - The Mist Guardian.

It sounded ridiculous even in the privacy of his head.

And still it was on offer.

Agreeing meant being bound to a fifteen-year-old, stubborn, cock-blocking brat. One whose grandfather had just been killed, who had stood at death's door, fighting tooth and nail where older men would have long since surrendered. A teen who, apparently, had dangerous enemies of his own, and who had stood in front of Shamal's defenceless body when the hitman had been careless enough to get hit. He was still berating himself for this moment of utter idiocy, which could have got him killed.

The unfortunate soft spot he had somehow developed for the brat was the only thing deterring him from running for the hills and never looking back. Well, that and the barely bearable urge to know what the hell had transpired in Harry's room, which had turned into a battlefield riddled with corpses and was still unapproachable by anyone else in the hospital.

Shamal had pondered the situation since he'd carried Harry to an unoccupied room and tended to his wounds. The younger brunet was still unconscious and Snape was nowhere to be seen. Just then, the door opened and Grumpy swept in, followed more sedately by Blondie.

Speak of the devil!

"You took your sweet time," Shamal grumbled, but was categorically ignored by Snape, who stepped up to the bed and scrutinised Harry with a stormy expression.

"They shouldn't have been able to find him…" Snape stared a few moments longer, before he determinedly whirled around and hurled a red light at him. Shamal's eyes widened, but he rolled off the chair just in time to dodge the energy thing.

"What the- What the hell are you doing? Have you snapped?"

"Stunning you," Snape replied while firing another red light beam in his direction, which Shamal dodged, as well. "I doubt you'll just let me erase your memories without complaint."

"My memories? Why?" And what exactly did 'erase' mean? More of this hocus-pocus or was Snape trying to blow his head off? Both cases seemed equally probable right now.

Apparently Grumpy wasn't inclined to answer any more questions, and instead bombarded him with 'stunners' until, finally, enough was enough and Shamal sent out Monika to dish out incapacitation of his own. Seconds later, the other brunet crumpled to the floor, his dark eyes uncharacteristically wide.

Shamal spared a glance at Spanner, who had ambled over to Harry's bed and seemed relatively uninterested in their fight, before the brunet sauntered over to Snape.

"Now that everyone has calmed down, you might as well tell me everything. As Harry's new Mist Guardian I'll be around for quite a while, after all."

In that moment, the bond clicked into place in the back of his mind and warmth spread softly throughout his chest.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'ed by the lovely NonchalantxFish

Reborn couldn't sleep, which probably wasn't a surprise after the day he had experienced.

In the morning, he had been looking forward to finally getting some information about Potter and now his head was fit to burst with the onslaught of new information. The situation was a lot more complicated than he had first anticipated, but Reborn would be lying if he denied how excited he was.

Not only had he found a diamond in the rough, the next few months were bound to be very interesting in terms of action and information. If he was lucky enough, he might even make a breakthrough concerning his curse.

Flicking on the bedside lamp, the brunet dragged one of the heavy books that Potter had lent him onto the mattress. Leon, who’d been sleeping on the pillow next to Reborn's head, scurried under the duvet to escape the light, as if he hadn't napped beneath the hitman's fedora for almost half a day.

Shaking his head, Reborn flipped the leather-bound tome open and began to read. Two hours later he knew all about the rise and fall of the Dark Lord Gellert Grindelwald, but instead of getting sleepier, his mind had become more alert.

He shut the book with a deep sigh and hopped off the bed to get dressed. Maybe stretching his legs would help. With his suit and fedora in place, he flicked the light off again and opened the door to his guest room to step into the ridiculously long hallway. Wizarding Space, they had called it, a type of magic that expanded the interior of buildings and such things without it being visible from the outside. Very handy, from what he had seen.

Reborn silently descended the stairway and stopped at the bottom. Surrounded by dozens of lit and unlit candles, Potter sat cross-legged on the sitting room floor, his eyes closed and his steady palms facing upwards. Little, flickering flames were dancing across his hands and from time to time one would jump to a candle and light it.

The hitman watched quietly as the circle of light was slowly completed and the remaining flames in Potter's hands disappeared.

"Where did you learn that?" Adding Flames to objects – weapons in particular - or directing them to certain body parts to enhance them was normal, but he had seldom seen someone manipulating them like this.

Potter opened his eyes and offered him a wry grin. "Can't sleep either, huh? Well, this is a training exercise for Flame control. Using Hard Flames comes to me easily, but I have to _really_ concentrate to use Soft Flames, so it's a good way to clear my mind of other stuff."

"That doesn't answer my question, idiot," Reborn criticised blank-faced and threw one of the apples from the fruit bowl on the sitting room table at the brunet's head. And he wasn't sure if he was surprised or not that a hand shot up to catch the projectile in mid-air, before Potter bit into it with a cheeky grin

"When I activated my Flames – I was twelve, if you want to know – I had a hard time controlling them. Sometimes they would just pop up out of nowhere and a few times I almost burned down the house. Due to his work, Grandpa knew a lot of people; among them, a Sky who agreed to help me out. She showed me a lot of exercises; most of them didn't really work for me, but this one did." He shrugged. "It's nothing special, really."

"And who is this 'she'?" Reborn inquired, his dark eyes narrowing. Most Flame users, especially Skies, were part of the Mafia, so he probably knew this person.

"'She' is someone whose identity I won't be disclosing to you," Potter replied calmly as he got to his feet, stretched and stepped out of the fire circle. "Don't bother trying to threaten me… or asking Shamal. He doesn't know her, either."

As if that would stop Reborn from finding out, anyway. And he would. One way or another. But first:

"You said you activated your Flames when you were twelve and now you're seventeen. Five years and you still don't have a full set of Guardians. That is unacceptable. By the time you're officially announced as Vongola Decimo all positions will be filled!" While Guardians weren't essential for a Sky per se, it was still a matter of reputation and security, especially for a mafia boss of the Vongola Famiglia.

"Perhaps," the wizard mumbled, while he gathered the still burning candles on the table with a flick of his wand. For a moment, Potter stared at the fire, before he turned around to face Reborn. "I have a connection to every Guardian that I _do_ have, forged and nurtured by something more worthwhile than a need to satisfy tradition. I refuse to pick a few random men or women just because they have the Flame types I'm missing to 'complete the set'. _Nox_." The candles flickered out, plunging the room into near darkness.

"I think we should try to get some sleep. Today, we'll go back at the cave to get the Horcrux. Good night."

Potter nodded at him before going up the stairs, leaving behind a contemplating Reborn. His new pupil seemed much too stubborn to be bullied into anything he didn't want to do, so the Acrobaleno had to think of a different way to accomplish his goals. A smirk appeared on his lips, accompanied by a calculating glint in his eyes.

By the time the Succession Ceremony rolled around, every Vongola Ring would have a new wearer.

* * *

"I upgraded the Spidbots, they should be more resistant to water and fire now. I also tweaked the E-Googles, they are thirty percent more accurate. Then we have the-"

Reborn eyed the ever-growing pile of gadgets on the kitchen table, then the tall, slightly gangly teenager who had built all of them. At only sixteen, Spanner had already constructed quite a few interesting and useful inventions. He was bound to be an asset for Vongola, but this was a bit too much. There was no way they'd be able to carry all of this.

Potter seemed to agree, because he dragged the taller teen into his arms mid-sentence and squeezed him.

"I know you're worried, but I promise we'll be extra careful this time."

"For you, 'careful' means running headlong into danger," the blond deadpanned, but returned the embrace anyway, leaving behind an oil stain on the back of Potter's shirt.

That was the moment when Snape stepped into the room. He set his sights on the table, regarded the hugging brothers and sighed.

"Have you finished preparing? The others are waiting for us on site."

"Just about." Potter squeezed the blond one last time, before he turned to the table and shoved some of the gadgets into a pouch that was attached to his belt. A pouch too small to logically contain all of the things which had disappeared into it… Wizarding Space, then.

Internally shaking his head, Reborn jumped onto the teen's shoulder. Potter looked a bit surprised but not averse. Not that Reborn would have cared if he had.

"Hold on tight, I don't want you to get lost or splinched. See you later, Spanner."

The hitman had only seconds to prepare for one of the worst forms of travel he had ever experienced. One moment he was reaching out to clutch Potter's head, the next, the kitchen from the 'little' cottage in the middle of nowhere disappeared from his eyes.

When he regained his wits, they stood in a narrow, green valley, which was surrounded by mountains on three sides; the fourth was mostly covered by rocks and shrubbery.

"Where are we?"

"Somewhere in the Scottish highlands."

Reborn aborted a frown and turned to the person who had answered him. It turned out to be a tall man with red hair and a charming grin. He was accompanied by a bald man of similar height and seemingly African ethnicity, who was eyeing the hitman sceptically.

"These are William Weasley and Kingsley Shacklebolt. They will assist us in our mission to acquire the Horcrux. Bill, Kingley, this is Reborn, one of Shamal's acquaintances, who will be helping us from now on," Snape introduced and waved a hand at a seemingly random part of the mountain next to them. "If you would, please, Bill."

"Right down to business, as usual, Severus." Still grinning, the redhead turned back to Reborn and his wizard-shaped means of transport. "It's nice to meet you, Reborn. Harry, I'm glad you're feeling better. Tonks wants me to tell you, once again, that she's sorry."

Potter uttered a sigh but quirked a smile.

"Then please tell her, once again, that it's fine. It could have happened to any of us. The rock looked like any other."

Weasley nodded, squeezed the younger man's shoulder and finally approached the mountain. With a flick of his wrist a wand appeared in his hand, which the redhead promptly started to wave around - not unlike a conductor, to be honest.

"The wards are still down. I don't think V knows that we've found this hiding place. Let's go inside."

Both of Reborn's eyebrows disappeared beneath his fedora.

'Go inside'?

There was neither a cave entrance in sight nor any indication that someone had disguised the entrance to look like a part of the mountain. Then again, even Mist Flames were quite capable of concealment, so they were probably standing right in front of the entrance without seeing and feeling it.

And yep, Weasley had just disappeared through a solid looking rock face, followed by Shacklebolt and Snape.

Potter took a deep breath and approached the entrance, as well.

"Well, let's hope we don't have to find out if third time's really the charm, huh?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let the Horcrux Hunt commence. 
> 
> I'm also kinda curious about who you think/hope Harry's other guardians will be, so I'd be quite happy if you'd tell me. :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter was like pulling teeth. Shark teeth. With bare hands.
> 
> Beta'ed by the lovely NonchalantxFish

Potter stepped through the apparently solid wall of rock without batting an eye, but then again Reborn hadn’t expected anything else from him. On the other side of the illusion Snape, Shacklebolt and Weasley were waiting for them in a narrow cave passageway, barely high enough to accommodate the men’s not insignificant height. All three of them were holding their respective wand in one hand and a torch in the other – though one lit with fire, not the expected electric version.

“Normal electronics don’t work well in places with high magic density. The Lumos spell is usually a good alternative, because our wands turn into a sort of magical torch, but other spells can’t be used simultaneously,” Potter explained upon Reborn’s inquiry about the outdated light source and promptly transfigured a rock into a torch, added some liquid out of a phial, then lit it with a muttered  _ Incendio _ .

The hitman hummed and raised his right hand towards his fedora, where Leon had waited for his time to shine – literally. The chameleon turned into a green torch, through which Reborn directed a moderate but steady stream of Sun Flames to create a light.

“What the-“ Potter, who had watched the transformation from the corners of his eyes, gaped in astonishment and hesitantly tapped a finger against Leon, who twitched a bit when the brunet accidentally found a ticklish spot. “Can he transform into anything?”

“He can’t change his size and he has to have seen the object before, but otherwise yes,” Reborn confirmed, smirking. It was nice to turn the tables and throw a wizard for a loop instead of being the one shocked or confused.

“Yes, marvellous indeed, the chameleon can shapeshift. You can discuss its amazing transformation skills later,” Snape drawled. “Or should we leave you to your picnic and get the Horcrux ourselves?”

“ _ Please _ don’t shoot my Cloud Guardian,” Potter entreated Reborn quickly (and there was definitely an amused glint in his eyes) as the hitman contemplatively fingered his gun. Reborn saw Snape roll his eyes from the corner of his eyes, but his attention had shifted back to Potter.

“Oh? What will I get for sparing him?”

“You will make me very happy?” Reborn stared at the brunet with all the force of his wholly unimpressed being. “…and Tiramisu, as soon as I have time to make it.”

“Hm, fine. It better be good.”

Potter snorted as he first squeezed past Shacklebolt, then Snape to align himself right behind Weasley. Reborn, who was still sitting on the brunet’s shoulder, silently pondered who and which factors had decided this order. The reason quickly became apparent to him, when Weasley edged around apparently innocent looking parts of ground, ducked under air here and there and at times got dragged back by Potter’s hand in his robes. 

Traps then. 

Shacklebolt and Snape were following their lead unquestioningly. It all seemed pretty random, but considering Reborn hadn’t even seen the entrance to the cave, he was grudgingly giving both of them the benefit of the doubt.

They walked for about ten to fifteen minutes, before the cave broadened enough to allow two people to walk next to each other comfortably. Potter pointed to a slightly protruding, innocent looking rock to their left. “This is where we had to abort the mission last time.”

A short while later, Weasley jerked to a halt and raised his hand to stop them, as well. The redhead cast a few spells and a web of differently coloured threads appeared in front of them. They reached from one side of the tunnel to the other, were tightly interwoven and ended each in a circle of symbols. Runes? 

“Hm, that’s a problem,” Weasley mumbled, while tracing each thread and the corresponding runes with his eyes.

“What’s wrong, Bill? What does it do?” Shacklebolt inquired. His voice sounded calm and collected, but Reborn picked out a faint undertone of concern.

“Several things, this curse web is a pretty disgusting piece of work.” The redhead furrowed his brow as he pointed to a dark blue thread. “This here will melt skin, if you come even close to it and the red one over there will make your blood boil.” He critically studied an anthracite, almost black thread and its respective symbols. “I’m not quite sure what this one does, but it probably won’t be pretty,” Weasley added gravely and cast another spell, which made the threads pulse for whatever reason.

“But you can deactivate them, right?” Potter asked hopefully, looking back and forth between Weasley and the obstruction.

“Individually they wouldn’t pose a problem, but they’re tightly interwoven with each other. That means I can’t take them down one by one. It has to happen simultaneously, otherwise the whole thing will explode into our faces and if we survive that, we’ll be smashed to pieces by the cave in. Too bad we can’t get rid of the anti-apparition wards in this place or we could just apparate to the other side.”

“I don’t suppose we can assist you in taking this down?” Snape inquired, but Weasley shook his head before the brunet had even finished the question. “None of you has enough training. Getting the timing just right is tricky. Curse breaking teams have to practice for hours until they can dismantle a curse web like this.” 

“We could just circumvent it by building a tunnel,” Reborn pointed out dryly, making everyone else come to a dead stop. Their flummoxed expressions conjured a smirk onto the hitman’s lips, who was starting to like this day a lot more than the previous one. “I assume there’s an appropriate spell for getting the job done?”

And indeed there was. Probably even more than one, but the only spell coming up was one of Weasley’s, apparently used during digs. It was a slow-going process, which only removed an inch or two of rock per spell use, but an hour and a half later they finally stood on the other side of the curse web. 

“Let’s hope there won’t be more wards like this…,” Potter muttered, while casting a  _ Scourgify _ on himself, then on Reborn, who only heard him because he had resumed his seat on the brunet’s shoulder after walking through the new tunnel.

The cave passageway declined, leading them even deeper underground, until they came to a forked path. 

“What now? Should we split up?” Weasley didn’t sound too thrilled by that option.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Potter retorted, critically eying the tunnel Reborn was currently illuminating with Leon. “There’s another fork over there and I bet the other way leads to at least one, too. Looks like this might be the entrance to a cave labyrinth…” The brunet uttered a deep sigh. “I hate labyrinths, especially when they’re somehow connected to V. In moments like this I wish the Point Me-spell would actually point towards something you’re looking for and  _ not _ just North.”

In the end they took the left path and the further they followed it, the more Potter was frowning and tilting his head, like he was hearing something. Reborn heard nothing but their breathing, their footsteps and the rustling of their clothing.

“What is it?”

“There are snakes behind these walls, they… it seems like they have the order to kill us. Well, anyone who reaches this place, actually, but they’re waiting for something.” 

So Potter understood snakes... For some reason, Reborn wasn’t even surprised anymore. 

“What are they waiting for?” 

“The ‘white ones’. I guess some kind of welcoming committee is awaiting us,” Potter offered with an empty smile and gripped his wand a bit tighter.

They took a few more turns without anything happening, but suddenly scuffling could be heard and in the next moment a pale creature lunged at them from the darkness. Reborn was the first to fire a shot. The bullet broke through cranial bone, but the thing didn’t even seem to notice and was certainly not slowing down. Then fiery rope encircled the creature, before a fist-sized fireball exploded against its chest. The being screeched (perhaps in anguish, perhaps in fury), as it was quickly consumed by the flames.

“More Inferi are coming! Keep the fire spells up and don’t forget the snakes!” Potter shouted, before casting spell after spell at the oncoming zombie-like creatures. Reborn jumped to the ground and sent Sun Flame infused bullets at the Inferi, which weren’t anywhere as effective as the fire spells the wizards were using, even if they slowed the monster down a bit. 

With a heartfelt grumble Reborn turned to the venomous, hissing snakes, which charged at the wizards as soon as they dropped from the holes and cracks in the wall. There were dozens upon dozens of them, every single one more deadly than the next. The pale ones, like the Inland Taipans, were easy to spot, before they had the chance to bring about damage, but others were barely visible in the dim light of the cave, especially now that only two torches continued to burn on the ground. Fortunately Reborn had had lots of practice at eliminating opponents and marks in worse situations. 

Easily evading grasping, rotting hands, or kicking the moving corpses away from him, Reborn put one bullet after another into snake heads. Meanwhile part of his attention remained on Potter, whose continuing existence was the only one that mattered to him (and perhaps Snape’s as the teen’s Guardian). The brunet’s back was to the cave wall and his spells were incinerating Inferi by the second, but as soon as one turned to dust, another one took its place in a seemingly never ending onslaught. 

By chance Reborn witnessed Shacklebolt bumping against part of another wall, which had to be yet another trap, because in the next moment purple light flashed from the spot, engulfed the man’s right arm up to the elbow and  _ squeezed _ . A pained cry tore out of Shacklebolt’s mouth as the curse not only broke the bones, but visibly  _ shattered _ them. The man’s wand clattered to the ground, just as a new Inferius lunged at him, but a whip consisting of fire wrapped around the creature in time and dragged it back, while simultaneously setting it aflame.

“Activate your emergency portkey!” Snape, who was the one wielding the whip, shouted even as he dodged an incoming zombie attack. Reborn shot the Tiger Snake above the brunet’s head.

“But-“

“Now, Kingsley!” Shacklebolt clenched his teeth, but nonetheless disappeared into thin air after retrieving his wand. 

“Fall back!”

Reborn’s head whipped to Potter, whose expression was furious, as he first eyed the spot where Shacklebolt had stood, then another one the hitman couldn’t see, but was probably the location of Weasley. Potter took a deep breath and on the next the force of his resolve tinged his green eyes orange as the brunet entered Hyper-Dying Will mode. More Inferi were incoming, but this time they didn’t even have the chance to come close before a tornado of Flame swallowed them. There was nothing graceful about the attack that filled the cave with ear-splitting screeches, but the pureness and abundance of the Sky Flames alone took Reborn’s breath away.

When the fire finally died down there was no Inferi army left and Potter was on his knees, gasping for breath. The Dying-Will Flame above his brows had flickered out. And there, on the other side of the cave passage, Snape’s fire whip disappeared as the man crumbled to the ground, a Black Mamba falling with him. A few feet away Weasley lay unconscious, bleeding profusely from a head wound and several gashes.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry it took me this long to get out the next chapter! Plot bunnies took over my body and forced me to write other stuff. I'm still looking for a beta reader. If anyone's interested, please drop me a PM.
> 
> Beta'ed by the lovely NonchalantxFish

Well, that had escalated quickly. A Sky with Flame exhaustion, a Guardian with at least half a dozen snake bites on his neck and one of the most lethal snake poisons in his blood stream, a man whose arm bones had been all but pulverised, another one who was on his best way to bleeding to death and, last but not least, a very frustrated Sun Acrobaleno. Strongest hitman in the world, indeed; Reborn hadn’t been this useless against an opponent in decades.

Reborn took his prior assessment back, he couldn’t wait to see the back of this day.

Potter staggered to his feet like a newborn fawn and limped over to his downed Cloud. Nobody could claim the teen wasn’t tenacious. “Can you activate Bill’s emergency portkey, please? The others can do a better patch-up job than me,” the wizard requested, his voice strained, but his hands steady as he rummage through Snape’s pockets. He pulled various boxes and phials with dubious looking liquids out of them and piled them up next to him.

Reborn watched him open one of the small boxes, while he himself toddled over to Weasley, smeared some of the redhead’s blood over the bracelet on his right wrist to make it controllable for him and spoke the activation phrase. The redhead disappeared without further ado.

The box contained dark stones or at least something similar. Who knew with magic in the equation? Potter picked one of them and forced Snape to swallow it, before he finally activated the older man’s portkey, as well. Only then did the brunet sigh in relief and sit back.

“I’ll keep searching,” Potter informed him as he fiddled with the beeper attached to his belt and then inspected his swollen ankle. “We can’t afford coming back a third time,” he tapped the possible sprain with his wand and mumbled ‘ _Episkey’_. When the swelling lessened slightly but didn’t disappear, Potter uttered another sigh.

“Severus will kill me… and then Shamal will somehow revive me and kill me too. Maybe the other way around.”

“Your brother won’t?”

“No… he’ll give me this kicked puppy look, which he reserves just for me, and that’s a lot worse,” Potter grumbled. He stuffed the boxes and vials into the pouch with the gadgets and downed the contents of the last one. Shortly thereafter, steam was coming out of his ears. The brunet still looked weary, but a bit more energised.

Yeah. Okay. A magical energy drink. Why not?

“This’ll keep me on my feet for another hour or two. You good to go?” Potter scrutinised him, probably belatedly checking for injuries. Reborn scoffed in reply. As if he’d get injured during such a small skirmish. He hopped onto the brunet’s shoulder and tugged none too gently on one of the dark strands in retaliation for the ridiculous assumption. Potter batted at him half-heartedly but didn’t try to dislodge Reborn from his shoulder.

“Do you plan on running around like a headless chicken some more?”

Potter frowned at him, before taking a look around. After a moment of contemplation, he zeroed in on one of the remaining snakes, probably a black-banded sea krait. It was eyeing them attentively, but didn’t attack. The wizard pointed his wand at the reptile, which stopped swaying the moment the spell hit it and slithered up to them, when Potter started to hiss at it. The hitman inched his hand towards his gun, but the medium-sized snake docilely wrapped itself around the brunet’s left arm. A hissed conversation, to which Reborn wasn’t privy to, followed, then they were moving forward.

“It knows where V went and it’ll navigate us to the right spot,” the brunet explained and either didn’t see or ignored Reborn’s dubious gaze.

“It could be lying.” Maybe. Were snakes capable of lying? Reborn honestly wasn’t sure, but it was a possibility. “They _did_ try to kill us and almost succeeded in one case.”

Potter shook his head, the expression on his face bordering on guilty.

“Don’t worry, I used the Imperius curse on it. It’s a mind-control spell, so the snake _has_ to tell me the truth.”

As they, or rather the wizard, followed the winding path through the underground maze, Reborn pondered the ability to force one’s will upon another being with magic. Threatening someone or blackmailing them could lead to the same result, but this magical equivalent seemed more unnerving somehow.

“Can everyone cast the curse? Does it work on everybody?” Would it work on Reborn? On Potter? That’d spell not only trouble, but a catastrophe of epic proportions.

“Yeah, I guess so, it’s one of the three Unforgivables, though, and usually means a direct trip to Azkaban, our prison. Fighting it off can be hard, it depends on the person, but it’s definitely possible with enough training. And, uh, according to the snake we’ve reached our goal.”

Both of them stared at the dead-end in front of them. It didn’t even hide an invisible entrance, it was just a solid wall of rock. A solid wall of rock that the ominous V apparently had an open sesame to.

“Bloody hell…” The wizard released their guide, before getting down to business. Reborn hopped off his shoulder, when Potter stopped guessing passwords and began to hurl blasting charms and mini bombs at the wall. He even tried the digging spell again, but the rock remained undamaged. The thing was better reinforced than Fort Knox. Finally, Potter sank to the floor with his back to the supposed entrance and wearily rubbed his face with both hands.

“We came this far and now- Fuck!” The brunet furiously slammed his fist against the rock to his left, and grimaced in pain. The problem hadn’t even been the force of the momentum but the now blood-smeared, sharp edge Potter had managed to hit. Reborn rolled his eyes and called him an idiot.

Red rivulets ran down the teen’s arm and disappeared beneath the sleeve, but neither of them paid attention to it any longer, when the rock started to rumble and finally slid to the side, revealing the elusive entrance they’d been looking for.

They locked eyes in astonishment, before the wizard quickly scrambled to his feet, swayed for a dangerous moment, before cautiously entering the room. It was empty, bar a stone pedestal in the centre, which displayed a plain casket.

“This must be it!” Potter stepped closer and poked the casket with a transfigured stick to test for traps. When nothing happened, he nervously licked his lips and slowly reached out with both hands.

“Let’s hope it’s not cursed. Bill would be really handy right now...” Sporting a wry smile, Potter grasped the casket and quickly stepped back. No trap exploded into their faces and the teen’s hands remained intact, if one ignored the blood dripping onto the floor.

“I guess that’s that. Let’s go.”  

* * *

The portkey transported them to an entrance hall. If Reborn had to take a guess, he’d say it belonged to a manor of considerable age, if the décor and architecture was anything to go by. The walls were barely visible behind the staggering number of moving portraits and tapestries with coats of arms on them. Above their heads, a sizeable chandelier was glittering in the afternoon sun.

“It’s one of the estates people have gifted me,” Potter informed him and Reborn was alarmed at once, when the words came out slurred. It was the first and only warning he got before the teen crumpled to the ground, unconscious. The hitman jumped to the nearby balustrade just in time, but the casket clattered to the marble floor, though stayed intact.

A small creature clad in a pillow case popped into existence next to them. It’s bulging eyes widened even more, before it disappeared again. Moments later several footsteps could be heard rushing in their direction. A young brood of redheads – Weasley’s family? – entered the hall first, followed shortly by Shamal and Spanner.

“Careful my arse,” Spanner grumbled. His face was impassive, but his concern was obvious in the way he shifted from foot to foot while Shamal checked on his brother.

“We should really consider putting a leash on him, so he can’t run off without us,” Shamal agreed with a long-suffering sigh and shot a glare in the direction of a pair of snickering, identical twins, when the word ‘kinky’ could be heard from their general vicinity. Their responding grin was utterly unrepentant.

“You’d think he’s a Gryffindor-” one of them started, but stopped mid-way. Reborn hoped to God they weren’t like the other set of twins he’d met a decade or so ago. The young hitmen-to-be had always finished each other’s sen-

“-and not a Slytherin,”

“but in his defence,”

“the hat said he’d fit into all the houses.”

Yeah, no. Just no. Reborn wouldn’t put up with _that_ headache, though the long-suffering grimace on Shamal’s face almost outweighed his annoyance. It was understandable, though. The other hitman barely tolerated other males on a good day. Adding his injured and unconscious (and also _ironically_ _male_ ) Sky to the mix and Reborn was surprised the brunet hadn’t snapped, yet.

“Shut up and get him to one of the rooms,” Shamal growled and nodded to the wide set of stairs.

“At your service,” the twins saluted, snickering again, before one of them cast a feather light charm on the younger teen. The other one slipped his arms under Potter’s back and legs to lift him up into a princess carry, which elicited a snort from the only female redhead of the group.

“Harry’s going to kick your arse, when he finds out you’ve been carrying him like that again.”

“If he doesn’t like it, he shouldn’t give us so many opportunities to do it,” both twins countered, not only unconcerned but also simultaneously, before quickly disappearing upstairs with Spanner in tow. Reborn followed their departure with a contemplative gaze.

“We could’ve just told one of the house elves to bring him upstairs, like we did with Kingsley, Bill and Snape, couldn’t we?” yet another redheaded, this one tall and gangly, mused with raised eyebrows.

“True, but this way, the two horrors are busy for a while.” Shamal pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and took a deep drag after lighting one of them. Only when his shoulders relaxed somewhat, did he turn back to Reborn. “What happened? Kingsley told us about the Inferi attack, but Severus and Bill weren’t exactly in a condition to give us an update.” He carefully picked up the casket and eyed it with distaste. “Guess this means you were successful, at least.”

“After sending Snape and Weasley in your direction, we took a stroll through the maze, found the X on the treasure map and travelled here.” Reborn smirked at Shamal, when the other hitman stared at him in exasperation for honing his report down to the bare bones. It was always fun to irritate him.

“Who’s that anyway? Some kind of magical creature we haven’t learnt about? A dwarf?” the remaining male redhead ‘whispered’ to his sister(?), who shrugged her shoulders, but eyed Reborn curiously too.

This time Reborn didn’t hesitate to send some bullets into their general direction, making extra sure to miss only by a hairsbreadth.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't get used to the quick update pace ;) Anyway, this chapter's a bit fillery and shorter, but it DOES contain plot relevant information. I wonder if you'll figure out who Harry's talking about in the latter part of the chapter, before I give you more information. Feel free to guess!
> 
> Beta'ed by the lovely NonchalantxFish

It was just past nine in the evening when Reborn opened the door to Potter’s temporary room. The Sky was still knocked out, as was his Cloud Guardian, making staying for the night the wiser decision. It was both a blessing and a curse. Some of the people residing in the manor were grating on his nerves, particularly a certain red-haired matriarch who’d taken exception to him ‘almost shooting her children’. Che,  _ civilians _ . They were all the same, even magical ones.

The hitman had wandered off while she’d been in mid-rant, not willing to listen to her for another second. Instead he’d scouted the building, which housed a dozen families and a few lone individuals. He’d come across some of them and promptly dismissed most as uninteresting. The talking portraits had been considerably more entertaining, as had the books in the library.

All the while the brunet had contemplated the twins. They were somewhat annoying, yes, but they’d seemed very protective of Potter. Maybe they’d make good Guardians? Reborn’s plans still included throwing as many active Flame users at his protégée as possible until he had a full set of Guardians, but he knew the teen would be more receptive to people he already knew and had a connection with. 

Were the twins capable of activating their Flames, though? Did they even  _ have _ Flames? And if they did, which type? If they were Clouds, Mists or Lightnings, they’d be useless.

Reborn hummed to himself as he hopped onto the chair next to Potter’s bed, side-eyeing Spanner, who was dozing in the armchair in the corner of the room, the lollipop in the corner of his mouth almost falling out. The blond was the least surprising choice, when it came to Potter’s current Guardians. According to Shamal’s narration, Spanner had become Flame active while under duress, with a trusted, unconscious Sky he’d wanted to protect right there. It had been the perfect circumstances to achieve harmony. Shamal’s situation hadn’t been quite the same, but similar (though by the sound of it had involved Sky attraction), so Reborn wondered if Potter had been knocked out in Snape’s case, as well. He didn’t know much about the man, only that he used to be Potter’s teacher and a spy.

Having nothing better to do, Reborn put his hat on the night table next to him and cracked open the book he’d picked up in the library. It was a primer for Arithmancy, which he knew nothing about, yet, but seemed to be magical math and had therefore aroused his curiosity. 

When he was halfway through the book, maybe an hour later, Potter’s fingers started to twitch, but it took another two or three minutes for his eyes to open. Reborn watched him by peering over the pages in front of him and finally closed the book when the wizard’s hazy gaze swivelled towards him.

“Ciaossu.”

“Hey.” The brunet blinked a few more times to wake himself up further. “How long was I out? And…” Potter studied him more thoroughly even as the corners of his mouth turned upwards. “And where did you get that outfit?”

Reborn looked down at his midnight blue robes with a star pattern, which was accentuated nicely by a wooden staff and the wizard’s hat Leon had turned into. He was a bit surprised his chameleon hadn’t turned back, yet, but it wasn’t the first time his companion had fallen asleep while changed.

“I made it.”

“A man of many talents, huh?” Potter grinned, but his compliment sounded genuine enough. “What else can you do? I mean, outside of mafia stuff.”

Reborn echoed the grin and put the book aside for now.  He’d get back to it at a later time. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” His voice had adopted a surprisingly teasing tone instead of the mocking one he’d aimed for. 

“I would, actually.”

“Too bad for you then, Potter. That’s for me to know and for you to probably never find out.” Reborn liked his secrets and the mysterious air that came with it. He only revealed bits and pieces, when it benefitted him or when he felt like it. “You’ve been unconscious for half a day. You better recover fast, I won’t spend another day here.” 

Potter snorted and shifted into a sitting position. His face had regained some colour and his hand had been healed. His ankle too, probably. He was still wearing the same clothes, however.

“Met Molly, have you? She can be a bit overbearing. Also, you can call me Harry if you want, you know?” The brunet let his gaze wander to his brother, who was still sleeping on the armchair. By now the lollypop had fallen from his slightly gaping mouth and was sticking to his coveralls. “I wouldn’t be able to take my time anyway. Spanner would just sit there the whole time and Severus would disappear into his dark lair- sorry, I meant  _ potion laboratory _ , of course. And I have to keep an eye on Shamal. He’s got better at not harassing women, but I’m pretty sure he’d regress if I weren’t there to… remind him of the consequences.” With a smirk on his lips,  _ Harry _ swung his legs over the edge of the bed and carefully got up. 

Reborn watched as the brunet peeled the lolly off of Spanner and covered him with his blanket, before approaching the door.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking on everyone. I guess you didn’t try to find out their current state?”

That was… true, actually. Harry apparently took his silence as the affirmation it was and stepped outside into the hallway, which was also lit by candles. Heaving a sigh, Reborn followed him. 

The bones in Shacklebolt’s arm had been vanished and were currently in the process of being regrown (that was in equal shares disturbing and interesting) and Weasley was already back on his feet. Only Snape was still unconscious, but the poison in his bloodstream had been neutralised and he’d most likely make a full recovery. 

“Are there any more Flame active witches or wizards?” the hitman wondered as they returned to Potter’s room, causing the wizard to frown at him.

“Not to my knowledge. Why? Wait-“ Harry squinted suspiciously at him. “This isn’t about adding to my Guardians again, right?”

“It has to be done,” Reborn declared, returning the teen’s glare with a steely gaze of his own until Harry huffed and dropped onto his bed.

“I almost had another one, you know? A few years back.”

Oh? Were they finally getting somewhere? 

“What happened?”

Falling silent for a few minutes, the brunet reclined on the mattress, staring at the ceiling like it held the answer to all of his problems. His gaze had turned wistful, maybe even pained, and suddenly Reborn wasn’t all that sure if it had stayed at ‘almost’.

“As you know, my grandpa was an inventor and did commissions for all kinds of people – rich civilians, mafia Famiglias, sometimes even for the government. One of his customers sometimes brought a child with her, a boy around my age. We used to play and talk while they were hashing out the details of their projects. We got on like a house on fire, pun not intended. It stayed like that for a few years, even after my Flames became active. 

A year later he went Active, too, and it wasn’t a huge surprise to us when we formed an instant connection. We were pretty happy about it, at the time, but… the next time the woman came she didn’t bring him. Instead, a man was accompanying her. He looked at me, sneered and then proceeded to ignore me. From that day onwards the woman always came alone and no matter how often I asked her why or if I could visit, she always came up with one bullshit excuse or another.” 

Reborn really wished he was wearing his fedora for the sole purpose of tugging it towards his face and plunging his face into more shadows. Whatever he’d expected, this wasn’t it. Someone had deliberately kept a fledging Guardian from their Sky, because, what? They’d thought the Sky wasn’t worthy enough? Every Sky was worthy if the potential Guardian deemed them so. If someone had tried that shit with him, he’d have killed them on the spot, even as a kid.

Not all Skies and their respective Guardians harmonized, especially in cases where they’d been purposefully matched, akin to an arranged marriage for whatever reason (mostly political ones). Seldom did anyone try to separate a Guardian from their Sky, though, even if they were from another Famiglia or the odd civilian. Some hostile Famiglias had even buried the hatched throughout the years for that very reason. 

“Who was it?” Reborn inquired, his voice clear but cold as ice. 

Harry and the as-of-yet-unnamed boy hadn’t seen each other for a few years, but he was sure that wouldn’t pose a problem in terms of compatibility. The hitman would ensure that they’d meet again, even if he had to kidnap the boy or threaten a whole Famiglia into compliance. Additionally, Harry was now the future Vongola Decimo. Even an idiot had to see how beneficial a tie to the most powerful mafia Famiglias could be.

“Maybe…” Pot-  _ Harry _ burrowed his visible hand in the sheet, even as he turned his back on Reborn and pulled the spare blanket over him. “Maybe I’ll tell you when we’ve defeated V.”  _ If I’m still alive then.  _ “You should get some sleep, too. Good night.” 

The hitman studied the brunet’s covered back for a long moment, on the verge of pressing for more information. He knew he wouldn’t get more out of the wizard, though; the teen was stubborn like that.  _ But _ , Reborn thought as he silently left the room, Leon in hand, there was another person who could give him the information he needed. A certain blond who wanted the best for his brother. Getting an unwillingly estranged Guardian back certainly counted.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again :) Thank you very much for your reviews and the guesses. It was very interesting to read your guesses! In this chapter the plot thickens some more.  
> Still looking for a beta reader btw, so please drop me a message if you're interested.
> 
> Beta'ed by the lovely NonchalantxFish

When Reborn entered the safe _ manor _ ’s (in no way was this a simple  _ house _ ) dining room the next morning, deliberately late in order to minimise the contact with certain individuals, his eyes fell on Shamal and the red-headed twins. Despite sitting at different spots around the table, they had one thing in common – all three of them were laughing. Not the amused or gloating sort, though. It was the desperate type resulting from either laughing gas or an unrelenting tickling attack. While some of the spectators were calmly eating their breakfast, completely ignoring the spectacle, others were watching with morbid curiosity. Nobody was protesting.

“Ciaossu, what’s up with them?” Reborn inquired as he hopped onto one of the empty chairs. The two teens he’d shot at the previous day were side-eyeing him warily, but continued to eat (or rather shovel food into their mouths in the boy’s case), whereas their mother was glaring daggers at him. Whatever.

“They’re reaping what they’ve sown,” Harry explained nonchalantly, before calmly eating another forkful of scrambled eggs. Reborn turned back to the display of low-key torture and nodded approvingly. Not too offensive for the soft-hearted people, who were bound to be in the room despite the current war, but effective anyway. Even Shamal, who was able to withstand painful torture wasn’t immune to  _ tickling _ , it appeared. This choice of retribution deserved full marks. 

“And what exactly  _ did _ they sow? I can well imagine what happened when it comes to Shamal, but are you really punishing those two for the way they carried you?” The hitman wondered, smirking, as he remembered several statements from the previous afternoon and night.

“Not really. Your guess is also probably wrong. To everyone’s surprise, Shamal actually kept his hands to himself and I’m resigned to those two carrying me around however they want while I’m unconscious. It  _ is _ my fault for constantly giving them the chance to do it.” The brunet sighed and grasped his wand when the laughing turned into slightly panicked gasping. A flick of his wrist later, the three sagged towards the table, trying to regain their breath.  “No, Fred and George tried to ambush me this morning. With this.” The brunet pulled a red dog collar out of his pocket and twirled it around his index finger. The tag attached to it spelled F&G in gold-coloured letters.

Reborn stared at the thing for a long moment, wondering why Harry hadn’t maintained the spell a little bit longer.

“And Shamal?” The Acrobaleno just couldn’t picture him participating in such a prank, no matter that he’d been the instigator of the idea. Maybe that was it? Maybe Harry was punishing him for giving the twins ideas?

“I’m innocent!” Shamal defended himself indignantly - but still a bit breathless - and drilled holes into his Sky with the power of his glare.

Harry glared right back. 

"Innocent my arse!” the brunet growled, easily ignoring the rebukes for swearing. “You tried to sic  _ Monika _ at me, when I dodged George's stunning spell! And then you slipped away, when that didn't work!" 

"I was just trying to make sure that your reflexes were still up to par!" Shamal retorted sulkily and Reborn… stood corrected. Apparently the man  _ had _ participated in the prank. A change he hadn’t expected to be honest. 

"A collar, how plebeian," a deep voice sneered from the doorway. "You should have applied a tethering spell." 

Harry, whose face had lit up in relief upon seeing Snape, burrowed his face in his hands and groaned. 

"It's a conspiracy! Everyone is ganging up on me..." Suddenly, the brunet yanked up his head and zeroed in on a certain witch, who was sitting at the other end of the table. 

"Hey, Hermione, let's leave everyone behind and search for the remaining Horcruxes on our own. We could ask Blaise, too, take one of the tents with us. I bet it would be  _ epic _ ." 

"Yeah, sure," the brunette muttered, not looking up from the book she was reading. "And then we'll ride into the sunset on a unicorn." 

"Hm... We could try our luck with the ones in the Forbidden Forest, but I’d prefer an abraxan. Do you think all three of us would fit on just one?" 

Hermione huffed, but finally raised her gaze from the tome in front of her. As it fell on Reborn, the exasperated expression slipped off her face and was replaced by eagerness. In no time, she was out of her seat, rummaging through the bag that had been hanging from her chair. Reborn gave her points for not tripping over her feet while approaching him.

“I found that notebook I’ve been telling you about,” the brunette explained as she finally pulled a leather-bound book out and offered it to the hitman. “I skimmed it and it mostly reads like a diary, but it also contains theories and the ritual they used. I’m not an expert by any means, but as far as I can tell the theory behind the ritual is sound. The most likely reason why it ended in disaster is the lack of power that went into it, which means the connection between the Acrobaleno and the pacifier didn’t break completely and led to a backlash.”

For a long moment Reborn stared at the unexpected source of information in his hands, utterly speechless. His mind felt both blank and like his thoughts were spinning out of control at the same time.  

“Could it be adjusted?” His voice came out surprisingly strong for feeling so faint. Reborn tugged the front of his fedora deeper to cover his expression in shadows anyway. His poker face was crumbling under the onslaught of hope and apprehension.

“I can’t promise anything,” the brunette conceded carefully. “But if experts were to check it and make adjustments, it could be doable. The problem is… we don’t have the resources at the moment. The appropriate people are either somewhere in hiding or busy with war-related tasks.”

A hand settled on his shoulder and without looking, Reborn knew it belonged to Harry.

“We’ll figure something out after dealing with V, I promise.” 

Reborn… decided to believe him, even though he’d only known the brunet for a few days.  Maybe it was foolish, maybe he’d end up gutted, but he’d chance it anyway. 

* * *

“Can’t you just use that fire thing if nothing else works?” Shamal inquired with a long-suffering sigh. His fingers were twitching every other minute and Reborn bet the former hitman was dying for a smoke after all the time they had spent trying to open the casket. He could relate somewhat, because a certain notebook was waiting for him upstairs in his guestroom in Rose Cottage.

“Fiendfyre?” Snape frowned, but the lines on his forehead seemed more contemplative than dismissive. “Perhaps. Making sure that it is indeed the diadem would be preferable however.”

“X-Ray scans?” Spanner drawled languidly, half slumped over the table top. 

“Do you have something suitable in that workshop of yours, kid?”

The blond shrugged.

“Not yet, but I can build it. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Let’s put the diadem on the backburner for now, then. We still have to deal with another two Horcuxes anyway,” Harry suggested and unceremoniously shoved the casket into the box that allegedly dampened its negative effects. “The cup and Nagini.”

“Trying to break into Gringotts was a  _ disaster _ ,” Shamal muttered, agitatedly carding his fingers through his hair until a few strands stuck out. “I got almost barbecued by that damn dragon.”

“I’m still surprised we got out alive,” Harry agreed with a grimace. “They’ve probably added even more security measures by now.”

“Which means we need Bellatrix Lestrange after all. Assuming the cup is even in her vault anymore.” Snape mused .

“Except she always slips away before we can hit her with an Imperius or something. For having so many screws loose, she’s surprisingly good at evading us.” Harry grumbled. “I wish we still had a way to get into Malfoy Manor. Getting to her would be easier. That house elf ward  _ sucks _ .”

“I assume,” Reborn, who’d silently watched until now, started, “that another ward and additional security measures prevent you from getting into said manor, correct?”

He received four more or less disgruntled nods.

“I doubt the security is failsafe.  _ No  _ security is failsafe, especially when the intruder happens to be a skilled hitman with an unconventional body height,” Reborn alluded, his eyes glinting with determination. This went beyond making sure his protégée survived a war and assumed his position as Vongola Decimo. The sooner the enemy was destroyed, the sooner everyone would be able to focus on breaking his curse. 

After a long pause, Harry hesitantly leant forward.

“I think I have an idea. It wouldn’t work for any of us, but Reborn might be able to pull it off. “

Shamal groaned in response. 

“I don’t know how, but I bet it involves you getting into trouble.”

“Doesn’t it always?” Spanner sighed, crunching down on his lolly. All three of Harry’s Guardians shared a long-suffering look.

“We should think about that tether spell, after all.”

* * *

A few hours later, Reborn entered Spanner’s workshop for the first time. It was time to get some damn answers to his questions.

Comparing the workshop to a scrapyard wouldn’t be too far off. Every surface of the room was covered in materials, tools or half-finished inventions. The only exception was a single shelf on the wall, which displayed a robot plushie encased with protective glass. Once upon a time its head had come off if the clumsy stitching on its ‘neck’ was any indication, but otherwise it looked well cared for. 

“What do you want?”

Reborn turned around to the blond he’d sought out and briefly eyed the device he was fiddling with; probably the X-ray unit they’d been talking about.

“I require some information,” Reborn demanded with his ‘and you better give it to me  _ or else’ _ voice as he cocked his gun for additional incentive. The teen glanced at the weapon apprehensively, but in the next moment he was staring back at him stubbornly, willing to take him on or die trying.

“You want to know who Harry’s childhood friend is. He figured you might try to confront me about it.” The blond nervously tugged a wrench-shaped lolly out of the pocket of his coveralls and shoved it into his mouth. “He doesn’t want me to tell you, but…”

After a moment, Reborn slowly engaged the safety of the gun and reluctantly waited out Spanner’s stalling in form of fiddling with a screwdriver. The hitman wasn’t even surprised that the Sky had figured out his next step. 

“I don’t know how much Harry told you but… he was really devastated. Back then. Grandpa tried to reason with those people, but that didn’t work too well. He also got some of his contacts on board, influential people, but they couldn’t really do anything, either.” He stopped his fiddling and looked Reborn dead in the eye. “Still sure  _ you’ll _ make a difference?”

The hitman scoffed.

“Of course I am.” But he really wanted to know just who those ‘influential people’ were, who that  _ boy _ was. The heir of a don? The offspring of a politician? “I have my ways of convincing people. Also, Harry’s in a different position than back then.”

“I doubt his connection to the Vongola will help you,” Spanner snorted and ripped a piece of paper out of a notepad. “On the contrary, it’ll probably complicate things, but be my guest and try your luck,” After scribbling down whatever information he had, the blond paused, but didn’t look up. “Just… don’t tell Harry until you’re sure that it’ll work out.” 

Finally, he slid the paper scrap over and went back to his tinkering.

Reborn picked it up, took in the name and cursed.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally want to tell you all who the mysterious Guardian is :( But unfortunately I can't for several more chapters, sorry. Someone actually got it right, though, but I won't reveal who ;)
> 
> Beta'ed by the lovely NonchalantxFish

To give everyone enough time to recuperate from the cave mission, Operation Starcup had been postponed for a few days. They’d spent the time hashing out the details of the plan and unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Reborn had started his little side project of finding out what had happened to Harry’s erstwhile and soon-to-be-again Guardian. 

It wasn’t as big a clusterfuck as the hitman had expected, no, it was an even  _ bigger _ one. Unfortunately, Reborn didn’t have the time or means at the moment to detangle the mess in its entirety, but he’d get to it in due time and had at least set his plan in motion. 

For now he’d go eat breakfast, continue his study on rituals, runes and arithmancy, scheme some more and on the following day he’d catch himself a crazy witch. Reborn was getting used to this magic thing.

When he got downstairs, only Harry was in the kitchen, fiddling with something on the worktop in front of him. Reborn was pretty sure the teen knew he was there, but didn’t acknowledge him for another minute or two. Rude. On principle he initiated a half-hearted apple assault again and watched with an internal sigh as the fruit was snatched out of the air without Harry even glancing at it or commenting. The hitman couldn’t quite decide if he was impressed or exasperated.

Finally, the brunet turned around and set a cup of espresso and a perfectly rectangular piece of tiramisu in front of him. In the top of it was a burning birthday candle.

“It’s ‘thank you for not shooting my Cloud’ tiramisu, as promised,” Harry explained and added, after a noticeable pause, “I guess it could also count as birthday tiramisu?”

Reborn blinked down at the cocoa powder-covered, mouth-watering dessert, then slowly raised his gaze to squint suspiciously at the brunet in front of him. 

“It’s not my birthday.” It  _ wasn’t _ . Not anymore.

Harry nervously licked his lip and looked like he was barely refraining from fidgeting. He was clearly uncomfortable with the situation, which brought up the question why he’d dropped this bomb shell in the first place. It wasn’t rocket science that Reborn’d want to know how Harry had acquired such sensitive intel.

“I know it’s not  _ Reborn’s _ birthday, just, uh… don’t you want to try the tiramisu? I think it turned out well.” It was a ridiculously weak diversion and they both knew it.  _ Harry _ knew it and a few moments later he caved.  “Shamal didn’t snitch, I swear. There’re things even I couldn’t get out of him. I got the information from my teacher, the one who taught me how to control my Flames...”

“The one whose identity you don’t want to disclose to me?” Reborn inquired sharply. He’d shoved the mysterious teacher to the back of his mind and had planned to ponder about it at a later date. Apparently the time had come. Who the hell would know his original birthdate after Shamal had got rid of his past? What  _ else _ did they know about him? 

“The very same,” Harry mumbled and heaved a sigh.  Green eyes closed and when they opened next, the brunet appeared a lot calmer. It was surprising that any flicker of orange was absent. “Okay, okay. Her name is Aria…”

Reborn stared at him, knowing where this was going but hardly believing it anyway.

“…Giglio Nero.”

What were the odd that his student’s (although he hadn’t taught the teen anything, yet) Sky Flame tutor was the current Sky Acrobaleno? Not only that, but also Don of the Giglio Nero Famiglia, daughter of his late friend Luce and genetically predisposed to a talent for  _ foresight _ .

If all of this was a coincidence, he’d eat his fedora.

“And how did I, in general, and my date of birth, in particular, come up?” The question was calm and even and promised all kinds of pain. 

Harry barely bat an eyelid.

“Aria sent a letter to my post office box out of nowhere. She gave me an update about her life during the last two years and you didn’t come up until the postscript. It consisted of the date, advice to tell you her name if the topic came up and a winking smiley.”

That sounded like Aria alright, but what was her angle in all of this? What did she know and what did she hope to accomplish? To have his past aired without his consent left a bad taste in his mouth, even if she had a good reason for this. He’d become ‘Reborn’ and had had his past erased for a reason, and if they managed to break his curse it would probably stay buried. Reborn hadn’t decided, yet.

While he contemplated his honorary niece’s actions, Reborn cut a corner off the tiramisu piece with his fork and slid it into his mouth. His thoughts came to a screeching halt as he tasted a piece of heaven. Harry wasn’t a bad cook, but this was  _ divine _ . He’d kill for more of this.

“Can you make anything else?” Reborn inquired hopefully after a moment, before he promptly shoved another fork-full into his mouth with relish.

“You mean Italian desserts?” Harry frowned bemusedly at him, most likely blindsided by the sudden change of topic. “Yes, I guess. Spanner and Grandpa were more partial to Japanese and British food, but we  _ did _ live in Italy, so I tried my hand at that. The only thing Spanner can make without anything exploding is his lollies and Grandpa wasn’t… the best cook either, so I did most of the cooking when I was old enough.”

The hitman demolished the last bite and leant back with a satisfied sigh.

“Make me more desserts that are on par with this one, not necessarily Italian, and something interesting may happen.”

“Interesting? Like what?” 

“You’ll just have to find out,” Reborn replied with a small smirk curling his mouth, but then the hard glint returned to his eyes. “In case you ever learn anything else about the me before Reborn, by whatever source, get it off your mind! That me is  _ dead _ .”

The brunet stared at him for a long moment, but, in the end, nodded earnestly.

“Alright, I promise,” Harry pledged, just before a mischievous twinkling crept into his eyes as if to counter the hard glint in the hitman’s. “Doesn’t mean I won’t try to find out about  _ Reborn _ .”

* * *

Reborn was sitting in one of the trees in the Forest of Dean, appropriately garbed in a ninja outfit, while Leon was doing a great job acting as his forehead protector.  On the ground, a group of people appeared out of nowhere, in their midst a young man with dark hair and emerald green eyes. 

Considering Shamal wasn’t all that good at creating animated illusions in the real world, the men and women seemed pretty realistic - At least realistic enough to fool those without knowledge of Flames. The man was probably trying extra hard to keep Harry from jumping out of nowhere and switching places with his look-alike. In the first draft of the plan he’d wanted to do the deed himself, but the idea had quickly been shot down by all three of his Guardians. 

When their trap was in position, Shamal nodded in his general direction and wrapped himself in Harry’s invisibility cloak. Reborn uttered ‘Voldemort’, one of the many words and phrases with a Taboo on them, and held his breath. Seconds later five men and a woman appeared in the small clearing. As expected, all of them had a red tie wrapped around one arm – Snatchers.  So far so good.

The constructs gasped and screamed, while scattering to the four winds. One by one they disappeared as if they’d Disapparated and Reborn hoped to God the Snatchers didn’t notice that their spells sometimes went right through the fleeing ‘people’.  The Harry illusion disappeared last, with a bleeding wound on its leg, and just a few feet in front of a burly Snatchers after a piece of paper had fallen out of its pocket. That, too, was an illusion, but a real note had been prepared beforehand at the same spot and was now waiting for one of the Snatchers to pick it up.

Unfortunately, Burly was too dim-witted to notice, but the woman shuffled closer and took an interest in the note, while the men were cursing and blaming each other for letting Harry Potter escape. 

“Looks like the address to a house under the Fidelius. Guess Potter wanted to bring them to a safe house.” The blonde cackled and shoved the note into a pocket. “Bet that’ll bring us a pretty Galleon.” The men agreed as their mood picked up again. All six of them Disapparated with smirks on their faces, not realising that a disillusioned stowaway with a silencing and featherlight charm was joining them.

Reborn barely refrained from cackling himself.

As soon as they appeared on a driveway, lined on both side with hedges and leading to what was hopefully Malfoy Manor, the hitman jumped away from his means of travel and tried to calm his stomach, while the group of Snatchers argued with the man guarding the inner gate. Reborn still wasn’t a big fan of Apparating, but at least their plan had worked so far. 

Getting onto the property with people keyed into the wards had led to his undetected arrival and his lack of magic was supposed to make sure it’d stay that way until he’d finished his task. Unfortunately, the spells on him were fading fast, because he couldn’t sustain them on his own, but that’s where his skills as a hitman came into play.

When he felt well enough to move without losing his breakfast, Reborn climbed over the gate and closed in on the building. The entrance door was closed and the hitman wasn’t willing to wait for it to open, so he rounded the manor and found a servant’s entrance at the foot of some cellar steps. The room behind it was silent, so he quickly picked the lock and carefully opened the door with his gun in one hand. 

It didn’t lead to the kitchen as expected, but to a dark, bare hallway, riddled with a few plain wooden doors. The room in front of him was filled with rows upon rows of food-laden shelves, from another the unmistakable sound of shattering glass could be heard, followed by wailing and a weird banging sound. Reborn grimaced and headed towards the stairs at the end of the hallway.

The ground floor was crawling with Snatchers and the odd Death Eater, if the identical black robes were anything to go by. None of them appeared particularly important, though, and definitely not like the dark-haired witch he was looking for. Before Reborn continued his search on the first floor, he held a pouch full of Spidbots against the wall and waited for them to scuttle out. One went towards the ceiling, the rest dispersed to the rest of the building. Installing new bugs in Voldemort’s headquarters was a nice side benefit of his visit.

Evading the sight of people, house elves and moving portraits alike, Reborn finally lucked out on the second floor.  A meeting was taking place in what looked like a spacious dining hall. Reborn recognised most of the attendees as high-ranking Death Eaters from the pictures Severus and Harry had shown him. Among them was Bellatrix Lestrange. 

The Death Eaters were silent, not even whispering to each other, though every now and then one of them side-eyed the staircase on the opposite side of the room. They were clearly waiting for someone, maybe Voldemort.

Waiting for the meeting to end seemed like a waste if the inner circle of the enemy fraction was already nicely arranged for him on a silver platter.

While Leon transformed into a tranquilizer gun, Reborn readied his normal handgun and used Sun Flames to give his reflexes a little boost. Four of the fifteen people died with a bullet to their head or heart before they even noticed that they were in danger, though Bellatrix dodged the tranquiliser dart directed at her and whipped out her wand to send a curse back at him.

Reborn took cover behind one of the stone pillars and dived towards another one, when the curse blasted halfway through it. Two of the remaining men tried to get to the stairs to flee, but never reached their escape route. The hitman sent another tranquiliser dart at the dark-haired witch, who grabbed one of her companions and used him as a shield. The blond stared horror-struck at his chest, blinked twice and crumpled to the floor.

Before he had the chance to try again, Reborn sensed danger from behind and jumped from the mantelpiece to the chandelier just in time to avoid becoming snake food.

“Cazzo!“ That beast was at least  _ fourteen feet long _ , what the hell had Voldemort fed it with? Reborn probably only counted as a little snack. Shaking his head he shot through the chain holding the chandelier in place and hopped off before the monstrosity collided with the wizard who’d tried to get to him. The crystal shattered on the ground and cut into the man’s flesh, but the Death Eater was already unmoving, bleeding profusely from the head. Just to be sure, Reborn sent a bullet through his brain, before once again evading the monster snake and several curses. 

Six men, Bellatrix and a reptile to go.

Reborn reloaded his ammo and weaved through the men, hopped on the last one on his path and waited for Nagini to catch up. Bellatrix, who’d turned her wand into a whip, reacted first, but instead of catching Reborn, the whip wrapped itself around the throat of poor bastard he’d been standing on seconds before, choking him to death even as the snake’s fangs buried themselves into his shoulder.

The hitman took advantage of the opportunity to slide over the polished floor and rammed the tranquiliser dart directly into the witch’s calf. She emitted a furious scream and launched threats as she tried to stumble after him, but after a few steps she crumbled to the floor. It took another ten seconds for her to succumb to unconsciousness, which was actually impressive.

Reborn slapped the portkey on her and activated it, before his focus went back to the remaining five men and one snake. Now that his mark was dealt with, he made short work of them by using his notorious Chaos Shot. The wizards breathed their last as intended, but Nagini barely slowed down.  He’d expected that, though, and quickly exchanged his current magazine with the one containing Sky Flame infused bullets. Harry had claimed Sky Flames worked on living Horcruxes, but not on inanimate ones and had handed him the bullets before his departure. Considering a fragment of a soul leeching on to another being was hardly a good example for harmony, it made sense.

Reborn empties the whole magazine into Nagini. It was overkill for sure, but he really didn’t care.  For a long moment the reptile squirmed and writhed on the floor, but then an unholy screech echoed throughout the dining room as black mist drifted out of the now unmoving snake.

He smirked at Snake-Face, who was running down the stairs, and portkeyed back to Rose Cottage.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has officially become my longest story, wohoo. Also, you will probably hate me by the end of the chapter.
> 
> Beta'd by the lovely NonchalantxFish, thank you very much :)

When Reborn arrived in the uninhabited house they'd unanimously agreed would be the perfect place to interrogate Bellatrix, the dark-haired witch was already securely chained to a high-backed, sturdy-looking chair. Considering the tranquiliser was supposed to work for at least half an hour, they had ample time to prepare while the woman was still unconscious, but it was always better to be safe than sorry.

Everyone from their little Rose Cottage group was already present. Spanner was setting up a video camera to film the interrogation for later perusal; the other three men were talking to each other in low voices, maybe going through the questions they wanted to ask one last time.

Harry was the first to acknowledge him, even going as far as approaching Reborn and checking the hitman for any obvious injuries.

"Welcome back. How did it go? Did you come across any problems?"

Reborn shrugged as he peeled himself out of his ninja garb, beneath which he had worn his surprisingly still pristine looking suit. The nonchalance was belied by the smug, little smirk curling his lips, however.

"Infiltrating the manor went as planned. I entered the building through a service entrance and installed the bugs as soon as I reached the ground floor," the Acrobaleno reported, accepting his fedora from Harry with a nod of thanks. Reborn had entrusted him with it prior to the start of the mission. "I found the mark on the second floor, in the company of most of her fellow high-ranking Death Eater colleagues. The ones you showed me photos of. As you can see-" The hitman nodded to the bound witch. "I managed to sedate Lestrange and send her here. I also neutralised the remaining Death Eaters in the room, as well as Nagini, who arrived during the skirmish. V turned up as I was leaving."

Now Reborn had everyone's attention on him and a not-inconsiderable amount of astonishment was directed at him.

"You…" Harry started, wide-eyed. "You got all of that done in less than an hour?"

"It could admittedly have gone faster, but scouring the manor for Lestrange took some time," Reborn replied, deliberately misunderstanding the statement to fan Harry's admiration. It was nice to get his ego stoked after the disaster with the Inferi. He didn't even care about Shamal's mockingly-raised eyebrow.

"We have to work quickly, then," Snape interrupted with a grim look on his face. "With most of his inner circle and his favourite Horcux destroyed, not to mention Bellatrix kidnapped, V will up his game. He's already destroyed several Muggle monuments and hunts everyone who opposes him. With the surveillance system back in place, we have a way to keep an eye on him again, but if he issues a wide-scale attack - or worse - before we can find the last Horcrux, then there will be even more casualties."

"Let's get down to business, then, and wake up Sleeping Crazy," Shamal drawled; he fished a syringe out of his coat pocket. As soon as he received affirmative nods from everyone, the brunet removed the protective cap and injected the pre-prepared sedative counteragent into Bellatrix's arm.

Half a minute ticked by before the witch started to struggle against the chains binding her. Her eyes snapped open and her deranged gaze zeroed in on Reborn at once, even bypassing Harry, who was Undesirable No. 1. It promised a drawn-out, painful death.

"YOU! You little maggot. When I get my hands on you, I will pluck your limbs off one by one and feed them to you!" Her rage reinforced her fortunately futile struggling.

Reborn looked back, unimpressed.

"Guess she's awake enough to be interrogated. You said something about a truth serum?"

Snape rolled his eyes at the blasé tone, but pulled a vial out of his robe pocket anyway. A few seconds into trying to administer the veritaserum to the witch, who was all but frothing at the mouth like a mad dog, the brunet cursed softly and cast a Stupefy on her to make things easier for himself. He removed his spell afterwards but did not tug away his wand, even though Lestrange was now sitting calmly on the chair, her eyes staring off into space and glazed over.

"What is your name?"

"Bellatrix Cassiopeia Lestrange," was the witch's monotone reply. He would only admit this to himself, but Reborn found the drastic change in demeanour a bit unsettling.

"Is Hufflepuff's Cup still in your vault in Gringotts?" Snape inquired, not beating around the bush.

Finding the last remaining Horcrux was agenda point number one. They'd debated on waiting to destroy the boxed-up diadem until they had the chance to question Bellatrix about a way to open it, but in the end they'd discarded that line of thought. The X-ray scan had given them enough assurance about the diadem's legitimacy to destroy the whole thing by Fiendfyre (which had been quite the dangerous spectacle).

"No."

"As expected," Snape grumbled, before focussing back on the witch. "Where is Hufflepuff's Cup now?"

"With Potter's little blood traitor friend."

Hearing the unexpected proclamation Potter's body turned rigid for the most part, though apart from grinding his teeth, he kept his mouth shut. Shamal, who was the teen's closest standing Guardian, still laid a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder, whereas Spanner and Snape shot him a concerned look. The latter took a deep breath and demanded clarification from the Death Eater.

"What is the name of the person you just referred to?"

"Blaise Zabini."

"What did you do to him?" Harry growled as he tried to rush up to the witch. Most likely having anticipated such a reaction, Shamal quickly wrapped his other arm around his Sky and held him back, even when one of Harry's pointy elbows was shoved into his gut. Reborn had heard the name Blaise mentioned once or twice before, but until now it hadn't been of much interest to him. Seeing Harry's fierce reaction, however, got him thinking.

"I extracted information from him and then my Lord attached the Cup to him."

Harry paled, obviously knowing quite well what 'extracting information' entailed.

"When did you catch him?" The teen inquired faintly.

"A week ago."

"I- I talked to him the day before our second trip to the cave." Harry gulped audibly. "One of the safe houses ran out of food and he wanted to meet up with his usual contact to get more. I got the usual note that everything went well."

"He probably got ambushed and the note… maybe they stumbled over the information, while interrogating him." Shamal mused. His restraining grip on the teen had turned into more of a reassuring hug as soon as Harry had stopped struggling.

"How did you capture Blaise Zabini?" Snape asked the witch, his tone freezing.

"We found out who his supplier is. We threatened him and lured Zabini into a trap."

As expected, then.

"For what purpose was the Cup attached to Blaise Zabini?"

"The chain and the Cup now hold the Deeris curse. If Zabini or anyone else takes both off or if the circle gets broken by destroying part of it, he dies."

"So, it's a deadman's switch…" Spanner pondered from his place next to the camera. "If Blaise isn't in contact with the… let's call it a necklace - the curse gets triggered."

"Indeed. It was often used in the past by dark families for various, nefarious purposes - for example to keep someone under their thumb. When the Auror division was established, though, it fell out of practice, because it was one of the things Aurors kept a sharp eye on. My guess is that they're relying on none of us being willing to sacrifice Blaise's life, especially because he is Harry's friend. And considering Slytherins are known for self-preservation rather than self-sacrifice, they don't think he will kill himself to destroy a Horcrux."

Reborn didn't know much about the characteristics of Slytherins or any other Hogwarts house, but he had to admit it was a genius move to secure the Horcurx to an important hostage and to make sure said hostage would die if the Horcux was destroyed. Nobody from the so-called light side he'd seen so far could probably stomach killing the teen and Harry's group was emotionally compromised anyway.

"Is there a way to negate it?"

"Not to my knowledge," Snape admitted regretfully with a shake of his head and carefully avoiding looking in Harry's general direction.

"Maybe Bill knows of one?" Said teen suggested quietly, with a last shred of hope flickering in his eyes.

"It is… possible," the Cloud permitted slowly, though his blank face gave some indication of how improbable it was. Blaise Zabini was bound to die if they wanted to make V mortal in order to get rid of him for good. "We should continue the interrogation, before the Veritaserum stops working. We can discuss everything else afterwards." Snape turned back to the witch, who was still staring off into space with glazed over eyes. "Where is Blaise Zabini now?"

"I don't know. My Lord didn't tell anyone."

While the wizard continued to interrogate Lestrange, Harry squirmed free of Shamal's hug to join his brother, who had pulled out one of the tablets connected to the SpidBots, in hope of finding Blaise in Malfoy Manor.

Reborn remained behind and finally asked Shamal the question that had been eagerly waiting at the tip of his tongue.

"Who is this Blaise Zabini?"

"He's one of Harry's best friends from Hogwarts and ultimately the reason why he chose Slytherin as his house, even though he could have gone to any of the other three. I think they met on the train ride to school... and apparently they tried dating at the beginning of their fifth year, but it didn't work out. Nowadays he's responsible for keeping the safe houses well supplied with everything they need."

The Acrobaleno hummed and looked back to the two teens on the other side of the room, who were staring intently at the screen in Spanner's hands.

"Did they-"

"Harmonize? No, Blaise isn't Flame active, but seeing him dead will still break something in Harry."


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting closer to that first arc finale, wohoo. And you'll get some more background information.
> 
> As always, this chapter has been beta'ed by the lovely NonchalantxFish!

‘I’ll never get used to this,’ Reborn mused as he tried to recover from the most recent trip by side-along Apparition. ‘But if everything goes as planned, I won’t have to.’

The last few days had been spent spying on a certain snake-faced bastard to find out a) Blaise’s whereabouts and b) the wizard’s next steps in this war. Unfortunately, they’d been deprived of seeing more than a minute or two of Voldemort’s epic temper tantrum following Reborn’s departure from Malfoy Manor, because the closest Spidbot, which Spanner had hidden in an old grandfather clock in one corner of the meeting room, had become the victim of a rage-fuelled blasting hex. Not knowing of its untimely demise at the time due to Bellatrix’ interrogation and therefore the revelation of Blaise’s kidnapping, the young Lightning hadn’t been able to replace the bug in time.

An hour after the carnage, another Spidbot had filmed him leaving the meeting room, still fuming, and marching to the ball room, where he’d promptly summoned his remaining Death Eaters and Snatchers. Voldemort’s minions had been informed about the attack and ordered to find and capture the Malfoys - dead or alive - followed by a hefty punishment for letting an intruder into their headquarters in the first place.

Afterwards, there’d been a lot of brooding on Voldemort’s part for a few days, but whatever plans the wizard had hatched in his disturbed mind, he’d kept them close to his chest.  In all that time they’d found neither hide nor hair of Blaise, either. Until the previous day, that is, when Voldemort had gone on a little trip and one of the Spidbots had latched onto his robe in time to side-apparate along.

The dark wizard had appeared in a windowless room with walls made of stone, akin to those of a castle, and strode over to a prone, shackled body on the ground. Harry had quickly identified said person as Blaise and the cup next to him as the Horcrux they were looking for, whereas Snape had recognised the teen’s unnatural stillness as the result of a potion called Draught of Living Death. Fortunately, it was easy to negate with the right antidote. Reborn had half-expected that they’d need something ridiculous like a True Love’s Kiss.

Finding the location of the building had been easy due to the wonders of GPS and now, a day later, all five of them, plus Bill Weasley, were standing in front of an old but well-kept hunting lodge in the middle of nowhere, which actually  _ did _ resemble a small castle.

Well… to be more accurate, they were standing outside the warded property, twenty feet of lawn between the house and themselves. Finding out who owned it had proven impossible, and they’d already tested whether Lestrange, who was currently under the Imperius curse, was coincidentally keyed into the wards or not. Considering she’d been sent flying when she’d been ordered to approach the house and climb the gate, it seemed improbable.

“It was a long shot anyway,” Shamal mused, while Snape kept the witch from giving it another try. The Mist pulled a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and lit one of them, before he turned to the only redhead in their midst. “It’s your time to shine, ward boy.”

“You think you’re so funny, but you’re really not,” Weasley drawled, rolling his eyes, but approaching the wards anyway. Before he had the chance to untangle the web keeping them from their prize, however, the sound of a backfiring car drew everyone’s attention and various weapons made an appearance just in case.

On the other side of the gate a young, blond man had appeared. He was immaculately dressed and there wasn’t one hair out of place, but the dark rings under his grey eyes pointed towards stress and sleepless nights.

“Malfoy.” Harry stared at the blond in surprise, mixed with a healthy dose of apprehension. “This is your property?”

“Mine?” The young man huffed a derisive snort and shot a glance over his shoulder towards the stone building. “I guess now it is.”

“Lucius is dead? You’re the new Lord Malfoy?” Snape’s face did something complicated and even Reborn, who was trained in reading expressions, had a hard time to identify more than a hint of regret and grief. What had happened to the patriarch of the Malfoy family had been unclear. The last time Reborn had seen him, the man had been sedated but still alive.

The blond, Draco Malfoy apparently, laughed hollowly.

“My father is gone. He was killed a few days ago.” The young wizard wrapped his left hand around one bar of the gate with enough force to turn his knuckles white. His gaze darkened even further and blazed with hatred as he eyed them one by one. “I know it was your fault.  You broke into Malfoy Manor.“

Reborn frowned and hopped onto Harry’s shoulder to have a better vantage point.

“I didn’t kill your father.”

Malfoy zeroed in on the Acrobaleno and scrutinised him for a long moment.

“The Dark Lord did. My fath-“ The blond’s voice cracked half-way through the word. He cleared his throat and tried again, but he still sounded strained. “My father was already teetering on the edge of the inner circle, because he had given away an object the Dark Lord had entrusted to his care.

“He persevered, slowly regained the Dark Lord’s trust, but then _you_ infiltrated the manor and killed almost everyone from his inner circle. My father was… _the_ _only one_ left alive in the meeting room… The Dark Lord accused him of conspiring against him and cast the Avada Kedavra. He put mother and me under… under the _Cruciatus_ for a while, but one of the house elves interfered. It saved us by bringing us to another property. Mother still hasn’t… she hasn’t regained consciousness, yet…”

“And what is your plan now?” Shamal inquired, perhaps also wondering whether the teen was out for revenge. If that was his plan, he was out of luck. Reborn alone would send a bullet through his heart long before Malfoy uttered the first syllable of any spell.

Instead of gearing up for a fight, however, the blond turned halfway around to stare at the hunting lodge again.

“I know that Blaise is in there right now, along with an object that’s important to the Dark Lord. After I became Lord Malfoy, all of the house elves approached me to verify if they should go on with their current tasks. One of them was supposed to take care of this house....” He released the gate and focussed his gaze on Harry. “Make no mistake, Potter, I  _ hate _ you, you and your little minions for starting this, but… you’re the lesser evil right now.”

The blond took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

“I want him dead! The Dark Lord, I mean. I don’t know what he’s planned for me and Mother, but it can’t be anything good and you’re my best bet at survival, Potter, so I’ll help you this time. I don’t know how to key people into the wards, yet, and I wouldn’t key  _ you _ in anyway, but I can bring Blaise to you.”

* * *

“That… came as a surprise,” Harry mused out loud as soon as Draco had disappeared inside the house, antidote for the Draught of Living Death in hand.

He’d never seen eye to eye with the other teen, not even during their first days in Hogwarts. Warding his possessions, something the brunet had learnt from Blaise, had quickly become a necessity if he’d wanted them to remain in one piece and where he left them. Living in the same dorm room with Draco Malfoy and his goons had also done wonders for his alertness concerning danger.

The blond’s willingness to help them, if only to save his own hide, was surprising, but Harry wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Hopefully with this, they’d have enough time to separate Blaise from the Horcrux while ensuring his continued existence. Negating the curse itself was impossible, even according to Bill, but they’d managed to figure out a loophole or two, and a course of action that was more risky than not.

It  _ had to _ work! Harry wouldn’t accept another outcome!

About ten minutes ticked by before the hunting lodge’s front door opened again. Draco had slung one arm around Blaise’s back to support the other teen, who was stumbling along. Harry stepped closer to the gate and worriedly eyed the countless bruises and cuts he could make out even from this distance – the result of torture, which had lasted for hours. He’d already seen the wounds through the camera of the Spidbot, but taking everything in with his own eyes was even worse.

What turned his stomach the most, however, was the heavy chain hanging around the other teen’s neck and the golden cup attached to it.

The last remaining Horcrux.

The final safeguard between Voldemort and mortality.

The first two had been destroyed a long time ago, during his second year in Hogwarts. Harry had been hearing a hissing voice all year and due to the snake who’d lived in his garden whom he’d sometimes conversed with, he’d recognised the distinct characteristics of Parseltongue, though he hadn’t known the skill’s name back then. At first the brunet had believed the reptile to be just someone’s ill-tempered and slightly deranged pet and had tried to broach the topic with some of his professors. None of them had taken his concerns seriously, though all of them had been shocked upon learning of his skill and advised him to not tell anyone else. They reason being the apparently bad reputation of Parselmouths, mainly perpetuatedbecause of Voldemort.

Things had heated up a few months later, when the first student had been found petrified, quickly followed by about half a dozen more victims. By then, Harry had known about the Chamber of Secrets and the similar events a few decades prior. The school had once again been in danger of closing down.

A few days after the seventh petrification had taken place, Harry’d heard someone talking in the hissing syllables of Parseltongue when he’d been passing Moaning Mytle’s bathroom by chance. Because it hadn’t been the same voice, the brunet had got curious and entered the bathroom just in time to see a flash of red disappear down a hole in the middle of the room, where the sinks usually were. Harry hadn’t had enough time to get help, because the opening had already started closing. Following whoever had jumped down there had therefore been the only viable choice.

The path had led to the Chamber of Secrets, where one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes, a diary, had started to leech the life force out of Ginevra Weasley. Upon noticing the intruder, it’d set a fucking  _ fifty-foot-long basilisk _ at Harry.

The good news: He’d somehow managed to defeat it with the help of his headmaster’s phoenix and the Sword of Gryffindor, which the bird had brought along.

The bad news:  One of the basilisk’s poisonous fangs had pierced the brunet’s arm, when the wizard had slayed the overgrown snake.

Harry had already been at death’s door, when he’d felt something in him crack open; something that had functioned as a floodgate for a foreign energy until then. It had spread throughout his body, soothing but unfortunately not healing. Fawkes had yet again saved him by crying into his wound, neutralising the poison and knitting his flesh back together. Only later had Harry found out that the Horcrux stuck in his scar had sealed his Flames all those years ago. With the basilisk poison weakening it, his Sky Flames had been able to break free and destroy the Horcrux completely to re-establish the Harmony in his body and soul.

The third of Voldemort’s soul pieces, contained in a Gaunt family heirloom ring, had been found by Dumbledore during the Christmas break of Harry’s fifth year. While the brunet had been recovering in hospital, after being attacked by the Estraneo, the old man had retrieved it from who knows where and had got himself fatally cursed by it. Severus had been his last hope, but when Harry’s Cloud had finally got the message and gone to Dumbledore, the man had already been on the cusp of death. With his dying breath, Dumbledore had entrusted him with the ring, his notes on Horcuxes and a pleading to find and destroy them.

Harry and his Guardians had come to a decision on the matter a few days later, when the brunet had been attacked in Ospedale Nicollò de Luca by Death Eaters. To this day they had no idea how they’d found him, but it had proven that Voldemort wouldn’t just leave him be.

In the beginning, they had planned to get rid of the Horcruxes by themselves and not involve anyone else. They’d bought a house in the middle of nowhere, slapped a Fidelius on it and worked through Dumbledore’s notes. The notes featured a prophecy about Harry, of which Severus knew the first few lines of. Getting into the Minstry of Magic and listening to the whole thing had left Harry utterly unimpressed and determined to ignore it. It had, however, explained why Voldemort was so bent on killing him.

Said self-proclaimed Lord hadn’t been idle in the meantime, either, however. A few months after Dumbledore’s untimely death, he’d broken his minions out of Azkaban and somehow replaced the majority of the higher ups in the Ministry with his own people. Attacks on wizards and witches opposing Voldemort had changed from random Death Eater attacks to persecutions by the Ministry itself.

The first safe houses had been established, additional ones had quickly followed. Some of them were properties Harry had been gifted with from people who wanted to help the Boy-Who-Lived. Back then Blaise had still been more on the neutral side of things due to his mother’s similar statusas well, but that had quickly changed when she’d been killed by Death Eaters during a raid on Diagon Alley.

Horcrux No. 4, Slytherin’s locket, had been destroyed shortly after Harry’s seventeenth birthday. Now of legal age in the wizarding world and thus old enough to inherit, Harry had been contacted by the goblins. (And their secret trip to Gringotts had also led to their catastrophic attempt to break into Bellatrix vault, that they’d never,  _ ever _ be talking about again!) Among his new possessions had been an old house of the Black family, which was situated in London and had shortly belonged to the godfather he’d never really met. While sweeping the house for anything useful, they’d come across the grumpy house elf living there and the locket around his neck, which exuded black magic on par with the other Horcruxes. Connecting the dots hadn’t been hard.

Around the same time, Spanner had finally managed to build version one of the current Spidbots, surveillance gadgets running on Flames rather than electricity and therefore usable in magic-rich environments. Severus, who’d still been keyed into the wards surrounding Malfoy Manor, had apparated onto the property and scattered them there. Unfortunately, he’d been spotted and removed from the list of approved people shortly thereafter and the bugs had malfunctioned perhaps a month later. They’d still learned about the diadem, which Voldemort had apparently retrieved from Hogwarts and secured in a certain Scottish highland cave.

And now here they were, about to destroy the last Horcux.

By now Draco and Blaise had reached the gate, the latter sending a small, tired smile at Harry, who returned it with a trembling one of his own. The gate opened with a wave of the blond’s wand, and Blaise was unceremoniously pushed over the invisible line of the wards. Harry barely managed to catch him in time, but when he did, he directed a glare at Malfoy from behind his friend’s shoulder.

“Well then, Potter. This is where-“

Malfoy was interrupted by the almost deafening sound of countless people arriving by Apparition. Harry swallowed thickly, before turning around and staring at one of his worst nightmares – Voldemort, standing in front of an army of Death Eaters, werewolves and even trolls.

“Did you really think that trick would work on me twice, Potter?” the dark wizard sneered and raised one bone-white, skeletal hand. Dangling between his thumb and forefinger was a half-crushed Spidbot.


End file.
